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takyon writes:

Mafia fugitive caught after posting YouTube cooking video

A mafia fugitive has been caught in the Caribbean after appearing on YouTube cooking videos in which he hid his face but inadvertently showed his distinctive tattoos.

Marc Feren Claude Biart, 53, led a quiet life in Boca Chica, in the Dominican Republic, with the local Italian expat community considering him a "foreigner", police said in a statement on Monday.

He was betrayed by a YouTube channel in which he showed off his Italian cooking skills. The videos never showed his face, but the tattoos on his body gave him away, they said.

Biart had been on the run since 2014, when Italian prosecutors ordered his arrest for trafficking in cocaine in the Netherlands on behalf of the Cacciola clan of the 'Ndrangheta mafia.

The Washington Post adds:

It is unclear if he has retained a lawyer or if his videos are still online. He could not immediately be reached for comment by The Washington Post.

While film and TV depictions of the mafia have launched two other crime syndicates — Cosa Nostra in Sicily and Camorra in Naples — into international notoriety, the more quiet 'Ndrangheta has managed to transcend both organizations in wealth and political power.

With a vast network based on blood ties, the 'Ndrangheta's reach extends from South America to Canada and across Europe, where it reportedly controls most of the cocaine market, the Atlantic reported. A 2013 study found the group's business revenue, mostly from drug trafficking and a garbage disposal operation, amounted to 3.5 percent of Italy's GDP.

See also: Fugitive Italian mobster is arrested in Lisbon COVID clinic

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Cryptos Stride Further Into Mainstream As New Paypal Feature Lets Users Pay With Bitcoin, Ethereum & More:

The online payments giant has added a new 'Checkout with Crypto' feature, which is set to become available for US users from Tuesday. The service will allow those holding bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash, and litecoin in their wallets to convert their tokens into US dollars or other fiat currencies while making purchases, with no additional transaction fees.

The option is set to automatically appear in people's PayPal wallets, but only one type of coin can be used for each purchase, according to the company. The fintech giant reportedly plans to enable the option at all of its 29 million merchants.

According to coinbase (as of 2021-03-30 20:35 UTC), Bitcoin was at $58,466 (+1.95%), Ethereum was at $1,840 (+2.04%), and BitCoin Cash was at $528 (+1.95%).

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Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Intel accused of wiretapping because it uses analytics to track keystrokes, mouse movements on its website:

Intel is among the growing list of companies being sued for allegedly violating American wiretapping laws by running third-party code to track interactions, such as keystrokes, click events, and cursor movements, on its website.

The plaintiff, Holly Londers, claims she visited Intel's website approximately a dozen times in the twelve months to January 2021, and during those visits the chip maker "utilized tracking, recording, and/or 'session replay' software to contemporaneously intercept [her] use and interaction with the website, including mouse clicks and movements," and information that she input, pages visited and viewed, and dates and times of visits.

The lawsuit has been brought under the 2020 Florida Security of Communications Act, which makes it a crime to intentionally intercept another person's electronic communications without prior consent.

Londers's complaint does not specify the session replay software involved but The Register understands from a conversation with one of the attorneys involved that it's believed to be Clicktale, which was acquired in 2019 by Contentsquare, a maker of similar analytics software.

[...] However, the attorney on the Florida case who spoke with The Register said the central issue is whether website visitors gave informed consent. And he voiced optimism that the Florida cases will survive motions to dismiss because Florida's wiretapping law is a strong consumer protection statute.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

DFI's Coffee Lake based "CS551" 3.5-inch SBC features an auto heat-up function that enables a -30 to 80°C range. The feature also appears on new, Whiskey Lake based, 2.5-inch "WL051" and Ryzen-based, 3.5-inch "GH551" SBCs.

[...] The heat-up feature enables the -30°C minimum by automatically heating the CPU when it drops below the chip's typical lower range of 0°C. On the high end, the systems supports up to 80°C instead of the usual 60°C in part by dynamically allocating computing resources between the CPU and GPU. On higher-TDP models, a fan option is required to achieve the range.

The auto heat-up function and -30 to 80°C support are also available on two other SBCs that are listed as new: an 8th Gen Whiskey Lake based, 2.5-inch WL051 and a Ryzen Embedded V1000/R1000 based, 3.5-inch GH551 (see farther below).

Now that is pretty damned nice. Beats the hell out of having to build and heat an enclosure.

Source: http://linuxgizmos.com/coffee-lake-whiskey-lake-and-ryzen-sbcs-run-at-30-to-80c-with-auto-heat-up-feature/

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

OpenAI's Text-Generating System Gpt-3 Is Now Spewing Out 4.5 Billion Words A Day:

The best-known AI text-generator is OpenAI's GPT-3, which the company recently announced is now being used in more than 300 different apps, by "tens of thousands" of developers, and producing 4.5 billion words per day. That's a lot of robot verbiage. This may be an arbitrary milestone for OpenAI to celebrate, but it's also a useful indicator of the growing scale, impact, and commercial potential of AI text generation.

OpenAI started life as a nonprofit, but for the last few years, it has been trying to make money with GPT-3 as its first salable product. The company has an exclusivity deal with Microsoft which gives the tech giant unique access to the program's underlying code, but any firm can apply for access to GPT-3's general API and build services on top of it.

[...] All this is good news for OpenAI (and Microsoft, whose Azure cloud computing platform powers OpenAI's tech), but not everyone in startup-land is keen.

[...] Like many algorithms, text generators have the capacity to absorb and amplify harmful biases. They're also often astoundingly dumb. In tests of a medical chatbot built using GPT-3, the model responded to a "suicidal" patient by encouraging them to kill themselves. These problems aren't insurmountable, but they're certainly worth flagging in a world where algorithms are already creating mistaken arrests, unfair school grades, and biased medical bills.

Original Submission

t-3 writes:

https://www.nber.org/papers/w28600

Communities across the United States are reconsidering the public safety benefits of prosecuting nonviolent misdemeanor offenses. So far there has been little empirical evidence to inform policy in this area. In this paper we report the first estimates of the causal effects of misdemeanor prosecution on defendants' subsequent criminal justice involvement. We leverage the as-if random assignment of nonviolent misdemeanor cases to Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs) who decide whether a case should move forward with prosecution in the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office in Massachusetts. These ADAs vary in the average leniency of their prosecution decisions. We find that, for the marginal defendant, nonprosecution of a nonviolent misdemeanor offense leads to large reductions in the likelihood of a new criminal complaint over the next two years. These local average treatment effects are largest for first-time defendants, suggesting that averting initial entry into the criminal justice system has the greatest benefits. We also present evidence that a recent policy change in Suffolk County imposing a presumption of nonprosecution for a set of nonviolent misdemeanor offenses had similar beneficial effects: the likelihood of future criminal justice involvement fell, with no apparent increase in local crime rates.

Journal Reference:
Amanda Y. Agan, Jennifer L. Doleac, Anna Harvey. Misdemeanor Prosecution, (DOI: 10.3386/w28600)

NB: The DOI link was not active yet at time of his story's writing should be active before long.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Researchers discover how animals grow their pointy body parts:

An interdisciplinary team at Monash University discovered a new universal rule of biological growth that explains surprising similarities in the shapes of sharp structures across the tree of life, including teeth, horns, claws, beaks, animal shells, and even the thorns and prickles of plants.

Animals and plants often grow in specific patterns, like logarithmic spirals following the golden ratio. There are very simple processes that generate these patterns—a logarithmic spiral is produced when one side of a structure grows faster than another at a constant ratio. We can call these 'rules of growth', and they help us understand why organisms are certain shapes.

In the new study published today in BMC Biology, the research team demonstrates a new rule called the 'power cascade' based on how the shape 'cascades' down a tooth following a power law.

When an elephant tusk grows longer, it grows wider at a very specific rate following a 'power law'—a mathematical pattern where there is a straight-line relationship between the logarithm of the tooth's width and length. Power laws are found throughout nature, such as in the magnitudes of earthquakes, the sizes of cities, and the movement of the stock market.

This pattern applies across many animals, in the teeth of giant sharks, Tyrannosaurus rex, mammoths, and even humans. Remarkably, this power law works for claws, hooves, horns, spider fangs, snail shells, antlers, and the beaks of mammals, birds, and dinosaurs. Beyond animals, the team also observed it in the thorns of the rose bush and lemon tree.

Journal Reference:
Alistair R. Evans, Tahlia I. Pollock, Silke G. C. Cleuren, et al. A universal power law for modelling the growth and form of teeth, claws, horns, thorns, beaks, and shells [open], BMC Biology (DOI: 10.1186/s12915-021-00990-w)

Original Submission

MrPlow writes in with a submission, via IRC, for TheMightyBuzzard

Backdoor Disguised as Typo Fix Added to PHP Source Code:

The developers of the PHP scripting language revealed on Sunday that they had identified what appeared to be malicious code in the php-src repository hosted on the git.php.net server.

The unauthorized code was disguised as two typo fix-related commits apparently pushed by Rasmus Lerdorf, author of the PHP language, and Nikita Popov, an important PHP contributor. The code seems to allow an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary PHP code.

[...] “While investigation is still underway, we have decided that maintaining our own git infrastructure is an unnecessary security risk, and that we will discontinue the git.php.net server. Instead, the repositories on GitHub, which were previously only mirrors, will become canonical. This means that changes should be pushed directly to GitHub rather than to git.php.net,” he added.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

High anxiety over federal weed loophole

Delta-8 THC[*] is an isomer of Delta-9 THC, the compound responsible for marijuana's intoxicating effects. That means the two are largely the same compound, with slight atomic differences. The vast majority of Delta-8 products aren't extracted from cannabis. Instead, producers convert plant-derived CBD into Delta-8 THC using a chemical process called isomerization. The process combines CBD with a solvent, acid and heat to cause the reaction that turns CBD[**] into THC.

[...] When Congress passed the 2018 farm bill legalizing hemp, it was eager to distinguish the crop from marijuana. Hemp and marijuana are the same species of plant, cannabis sativa L., but hemp can't contain more than 0.3 percent THC. The distinction is legal, not scientific.

"It's not clear whether [Delta-8 THC products] are illegal under the 2018 farm bill," said Jonathan Miller, general counsel for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable. "It is clear that it violates the spirit of the law."

[...] The CBD boom of last year led to plummeting prices and a huge glut of CBD isolate in the hemp industry. The Delta-8 trend is giving "processors an outlet for large inventories of CBD isolate they built up," said Ian Laird, chief financial officer at Hemp Benchmarks.

It's attractive for processors and retailers alike as the compound is more profitable than CBD. In January, Delta-8 cost about $1,400 per kilogram, while CBD isolate was selling for about $550 per kilogram.

[...] The call for regulations is a familiar refrain in the CBD industry, which has been begging the FDA to offer regulatory clarity. But it's not an easy task for regulators: There's still much unknown about the chemical process of turning CBD into Delta-8.

"It isn't just a clean one-to-one conversion," said Steven Crowley, compliance specialist at the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. "Fifteen to 30 percent is unknown byproducts."

And not only are there unknown byproducts, producers who cut corners or who simply don't know better may introduce impurities from the solvents and acids used in the process.

[*] Delta-8-Tetrahydrocannabinol. [**] CBD = Cannabidiol.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/att-lobbies-against-nationwide-fiber-says-10mbps-uploads-are-good-enough/

AT&T is lobbying against proposals to subsidize fiber-to-the-home deployment across the US, arguing that rural people don't need fiber and should be satisfied with Internet service that provides only 10Mbps upload speeds.

AT&T Executive VP Joan Marsh detailed the company's stance Friday in a blog post titled "Defining Broadband For the 21st Century." AT&T's preferred definition of 21st-century broadband could be met with wireless technology or AT&T's VDSL, a 14-year-old system that brings fiber to neighborhoods but uses copper telephone wires for the final connections into each home.

"[T]here would be significant additional cost to deploy fiber to virtually every home and small business in the country, when at present there is no compelling evidence that those expenditures are justified over the service quality of a 50/10 or 100/20Mbps product," AT&T wrote. (That would be 50Mbps download speeds with 10Mbps upload speeds or 100Mbps downloads with 20Mbps uploads.)

AT&T said that "overbuilding" areas that already have acceptable speeds "would needlessly devalue private investment and waste broadband-directed dollars."

"Overbuilding" is what the broadband industry calls one ISP building in an area already served by another ISP, whereas Internet users desperate for cheaper, faster, and more reliable service call that "broadband competition."

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Consent to being surveilled or risk getting fired, says Amazon

Remember the AI cameras Amazon said it was going to install in its delivery vans to, erm, monitor their driving behaviour? The company is now deploying them and has asked tens of thousands of its employees to consent to being biometrically surveilled.

The e-commerce giant, however, isn't really giving them much of a choice. They have to agree or they can't drive the vans at all. In short, they have to suck it up or they lose their jobs. Referring to its AI-powered cameras, Amazon said: "This technology may create Biometric Information, and collect, store, and use Biometric Information from such photographs," Vice reported.

The drivers also have to agree to Amazon potentially storing the data for up to 30 days after it was collected. Some have refused and given up their jobs. The cameras developed by Netradyne are running machine learning software to detect 16 different types of behaviour, including everything from failing to brake at a stop sign, or speeding, to not wearing a seat belt or if the camera is obstructed.

See also: Amazon ditching plans to monitor delivery drivers for mask wearing

Amazon has dropped plans to use in-vehicle cameras to record which delivery service provider (DSP) drivers are wearing masks. [...] Amazon plans to use the in-vehicle cameras to monitor safe driving behaviors, including distracted driving. In a recent training video, however, the company added mask wearing as one of the behaviors it would monitor, The Information reported.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

As the Arctic warms, lightning strikes are more frequent -- even near the North Pole:

As the Arctic warms, lightning strikes are more frequent -- even near the North Pole

In fact, Arctic lightning has tripled in just the last decade, according to a new study, published this week in the Geophysical Research Letters.

The University of Washington study used data collected by its network of lightning sensors, called the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN), which has been tracking lightning strokes globally since 2004. The data showed that above 65 degrees latitude the number of lightning strikes has increased significantly from 2010 to 2020.

While the study focused on areas inside the Arctic Circle -- northern portions of Canada, Alaska, Russia, Greenland and the central Arctic Ocean -- not all of those areas had equal results.

[...] In August 2019, there was one particularly unique event in which nearly 30 strikes were registered less than about 60 miles from the North Pole. This was a "major convective event" and it was unique to have lightning that close to the North Pole, according to the study.

Journal Reference:
R. H. Holzworth, J. B. Brundell, M. P. McCarthy, et al. Lightning in the Arctic, Geophysical Research Letters (DOI: 10.1029/2020GL091366)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

OpenSSL fixes high-severity flaw that allows hackers to crash servers:

OpenSSL, the most widely used software library for implementing website and email encryption, has patched a high-severity vulnerability that makes it easy for hackers to completely shut down huge numbers of servers.

[...] On Thursday, OpenSSL maintainers disclosed and patched a vulnerability that causes servers to crash when they receive a maliciously crafted request from an unauthenticated end user. CVE-2021-3449, as the denial-of-server vulnerability is tracked, is the result of a null pointer dereference bug. Cryptographic engineer Filippo Valsorda said on Twitter that the flaw could probably have been discovered earlier than now.

"Anyway, sounds like you can crash most OpenSSL servers on the Internet today," he added.

CVE-2021-3449 looks like it could have been found easily if anyone figured out how to fuzz renegotiation, but renegotiation is sadness.

Anyway, sounds like you can crash most OpenSSL servers on the Internet today.

— Filippo Valsorda 💚🤍❤️ ✊ (@FiloSottile) March 25, 2021

Hackers can exploit the vulnerability by sending a server a maliciously formed renegotiating request during the initial handshake that establishes a secure connection between an end user and a server.

[...] OpenSSL versions 1.1.1h and newer are vulnerable. OpenSSL 1.0.2 is not impacted by this issue. Akamai researchers Xiang Ding and Benjamin Kaduk discovered and reported the bug, respectively. It was patched by Tomáš Mráz, a principal software engineer at Red Hat and a member of the OpenSSL Technical Committee.

Apps that use a vulnerable OpenSSL version should upgrade to OpenSSL 1.1.1k as soon as possible.

According to The Mighty Buzzard, all of our servers have been checked and any needed updates have been applied. Thanks Buzz!

Original Submission

[Updated 2021-03-29 19:40:51 UTC] Ed. note: At the time of originally writing this story, the only information I could find on the ship's freeing was from directly watching it happen in real time. As originally reported here, that was on VesselFinder.com. There had been some reports last night of Ever Given having been freed, but those were later retracted. News reports were, therefore, suspect. The ship was still stuck. But then I was able to see it underway! I was also monitoring our news feeds and failed to find any reports concurrent with the apparent time of the ship's freeing. Again, the only certain information I had was watching it unfold online. In the interest of getting this breaking news to the community, accurately, and as quickly as possible, I could only refer the information I had at hand.

I'd read discussions elsewhere suggesting various approaches for freeing the ship, none of which held up to closer scrutiny. It's not just a matter of "pull harder!" The structural integrity of the ship was in question. A ship of that size undergoing an abrupt stop due to impact had the distinct possibility of breaking open and sinking. That would make the situation much, much worse. That it did no happen immediately was fortuitous. It was very much possible that a hasty attempt to free it could break it apart and sink it. That would make things much worse. Careful planning was required. Hence, the inclusion of a memorable example of Smit Salvage's successful raising of the Kursk. They knew what they were doing. Anything we could come up with was certainly already considered.

[Update 2] It's a few hours later and I'm finally seeing reports in the regular media that contains more detail. Take a look at Ship stuck in Suez Canal is freed: Everything you need to know. Sadly, even that lacks the details that I want to see. Just how did they get it free? How much and what kinds of equipment did they use? What process did they follow? What ideas did they consider and then reject, and why? If you come upon these kinds of details, please post them to the comments! --martyb

The original story appears below.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

These techniques may help reduce the acrimony in the comments.

Bad at public speaking? The trick is to distill your message to these 15 words, says speech trainer:

Very few of us are naturally eloquent. But in an age of disconnection — working from home, connecting with the world through a laptop camera — the ability to communicate clearly and effectively has never been more important.

My journey in public speaking started in 2010, after I discovered that 74% of Americans suffer from speech anxiety. My research led me to the Ancient Greeks, who invented speech training, to the present day, when I joined Toastmasters, the world's largest organization devoted to teaching the art of public speaking.

What did I learn? Being a great public speaker has nothing to do with your personality, with overcoming shyness or learning to act confident. It's a technical skill that nearly anyone can acquire, just like cooking.

[...] Then, it's time to distill your message. An effective method is to use this simple, 15-word sentence: As a result of my [talk], they will understand [this], and respond by [doing that].

Original Submission