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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Brazil’s data protection authority (ANPD) has banned Meta from training its artificial intelligence models on Brazilian personal data, citing the “risks of serious damage and difficulty to users.” The decision follows an update to Meta’s privacy policy in May in which the social media giant granted itself permission to use public Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram data from Brazil — including posts, images, and captions — for AI training.

The decision follows a report published by Human Rights Watch last month which found that LAION-5B — one of the largest image-caption datasets used to train AI models — contains personal, identifiable photos of Brazilian children, placing them at risk of deepfakes and other exploitation.

[...] Meta said in a statement to the AP that its updated policy “complies with privacy laws and regulations in Brazil,” and that the ruling is “a step backwards for innovation, competition in AI development and further delays bringing the benefits of AI to people in Brazil.” While Meta says users can opt out of having their data used to train AI, ANPD says there are “excessive and unjustified obstacles” in place that make it difficult to do so.

Meta received similar pushback from regulators in the EU causing the company to pause plans to train its AI models on European Facebook and Instagram posts. Meta’s updated data collection policies are already in effect in the US, however, which lacks comparable user privacy protections.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/07/middle-schoolers-lash-out-at-20-teachers-with-disturbing-fake-tiktok-accounts/

A bunch of eighth graders in a "wealthy Philadelphia suburb" recently targeted teachers with an extreme online harassment campaign that The New York Times reported was "the first known group TikTok attack of its kind by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States."

According to The Times, the Great Valley Middle School students created at least 22 fake accounts impersonating about 20 teachers in offensive ways. The fake accounts portrayed long-time, dedicated teachers sharing "pedophilia innuendo, racist memes," and homophobic posts, as well as posts fabricating "sexual hookups among teachers."

[...] Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association—which is the largest US teachers' union—told The Times that teachers have never dealt with such harassment on this scale. Typically, The Times reported, students would target a single educator at a time. Pringle said teachers risk online harassment being increasingly normalized. That "could push educators to question" leaving the profession, Pringle said, at a time when the US Department of Education is already combating a teacher shortage.

[...] TikTok's community guidelines ban impersonation, except for "parody or fan-based" accounts. The platform provides paths within the app and on its website to report impersonation, requiring teachers to show ID to request a takedown.

TikTok's enforcement so far seems uneven. Some teachers told The Times that they reported fake accounts and never heard back from TikTok. Others said they were not comfortable sharing an ID with TikTok for privacy reasons and therefore never reported the fake accounts.

[...] The only accounts that seemed to be promptly removed were four fake accounts flagged by a reporter that TikTok confirmed were deleted. TikTok found that the majority of other accounts flagged were unavailable.

[...] Reporting the behavior to TikTok could result in the most serious consequences for fans of TikTok: a ban that could trigger bans on all their other TikTok accounts. But that only happens in "the case of severe violations of our rules or engagement in circumvention behavior," TikTok's community guidelines said. That suggests that the middle schoolers would have to continually create new accounts to evade bans before TikTok may cut off their access to the platform.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Samsung launches Galaxy smart ring to track sleep and periods:

Samsung becomes first tech giant to launch a smart ring.

Samsung is hoping to lure fitness and health-tracking technology lovers with its newest wearable device - the Galaxy Ring.

It launched the device at its Galaxy Unpacked event on Wednesday as the latest addition to its ecosystem of devices it says it is "supercharging" with artificial intelligence (AI).

Smart rings, which use tiny sensors to monitor various health metrics, have up to now been a niche product - though their recent use by the England men's football team made headlines.

It seems Samsung is attempting to change that, becoming the largest tech company yet to enter the smart ring market.

Ben Wood, analyst at CCS Insight, says the product choice is an "interesting bet" for Samsung, with his company estimating that there will be a total global market of around four million smart rings in 2025.

"That is a rounding error when compared with 250 million smartwatches that are also expected to be sold," he told the BBC.

But others suggest Samsung may help make smart rings more mainstream.

"For most consumers, the smart ring from Samsung will be the first contact they will have in the smart ring, and that top of mind awareness makes a huge difference in the long-term," says Francisco Jeronimo, analyst for market research firm IDC.

Arthur T Knackerbracket wrote the following story:

By University of Illinois Chicago July 9, 2024

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have debunked four myths about intermittent fasting: it does not lead to a poor diet, cause eating disorders, result in excessive loss of lean muscle mass, or affect sex hormones. These conclusions, based on clinical studies, confirm the safety of both alternate-day eating and time-restricted eating methods.

In a recent article, researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago have debunked four common misconceptions regarding the safety of intermittent fasting.

Intermittent fasting has become an increasingly popular way to lose weight without counting calories. And a large body of research has shown it’s safe. Still, several myths about fasting have gained traction among clinicians, journalists and the general public: that fasting can lead to a poor diet or loss of lean muscle mass, cause eating disorders, or decrease sex hormones.

In a new commentary in Nature Reviews Endocrinology, UIC researchers debunk each of these. They base their conclusions on clinical studies, some of which they conducted and some done by others.

“I’ve been studying intermittent fasting for 20 years, and I’m constantly asked if the diets are safe,” said lead author Krista Varady, professor of kinesiology and nutrition at UIC. “There is a lot of misinformation out there. However, those ideas are not based on science; they’re just based on personal opinion.”

quietus writes:

On August 8, Elon Musk is going to present his fully-autonomous, all-electric car. But on the other side of the Atlantic, somebody has pipped him to it.

That somebody is a real tech wunderkind, a 36-year old Bosnian/Croatian by the name of Mate Rimac.

During his high-school years, Mr. Rimac won local, national and international competitions for electronics and innovation. Then he got interested into racing, and, at the age of 18, bought the cheapest racing car he could find, a 1984 BMW E30 323i. After that car's gasoline engine exploded during a race, he decided to turn the car into an electric one.

That was 2006. He was laughed at and ridiculed for the idea alone, but by 2009 his car started winning races, while beating a couple of world FIA and Guinness records. That success encouraged him to try and start a company which built electrical cars, insisting that the company should be based in Croatia, which did not have a car industry to talk about. Fast forward some more episodes of ridicule, tethering on the edge of bankruptcy and so on, and that fledgling company has turned into the main provider for battery software and electrical powertrain systems to about half the car industry, world-wide: Porsche, Hyundai, Kia, Renault, Jaguar, Aston Martin, SEAT, Koenigsegg and Automobili Pininfarina are some of its customers.

Rimac didn't stop building cars though: supercar enthusiasts know him, and his partner in crime, designer Adriano Mudri, as the men behind the Rimac Nevera (which can be yours for a cool (estimated) $2.2 million), and the guys who, three years ago, took over Bugatti from Volkswagen, with the participation of Porsche.

And now Rimac Automobili has come out with the Rimac Verne (yes, yes, that Verne), a fully autonomous robotaxi. Rollout towards world domination starts in 2026 in Zagreb, Croatia, where you'll be able to order its taxis through an app, complete with the interior lighting and scent you want. What you will need, though, is a bit of trust: there will be no steering wheel or brakes present, which might turn into an advantage in case you want to get rid of your elderly mother-in-law for a while.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The US Supreme Court has avoided making a final decision on challenges to the Texas and Florida social media laws, but the majority opinion written by Justice Elena Kagan criticized the Texas law and made it clear that content moderation is protected by the First Amendment.

The Texas law "is unlikely to withstand First Amendment scrutiny," the Supreme Court majority wrote. "Texas has thus far justified the law as necessary to balance the mix of speech on Facebook's News Feed and similar platforms; and the record reflects that Texas officials passed it because they thought those feeds skewed against politically conservative voices. But this Court has many times held, in many contexts, that it is no job for government to decide what counts as the right balance of private expression—to 'un-bias' what it thinks biased, rather than to leave such judgments to speakers and their audiences. That principle works for social-media platforms as it does for others."

A Big Tech lobby group that challenged the state laws said it was pleased by the ruling. "In a complex series of opinions that were unanimous in the outcome, but divided 6-3 in their reasoning, the Court sent the cases back to lower courts, making clear that a State may not interfere with private actors' speech," the Computer & Communications Industry Association said.

[...] The Supreme Court said it remanded the cases to the appeals courts because the courts didn't do a full analysis of the laws' effects. "Today, we vacate both decisions for reasons separate from the First Amendment merits, because neither Court of Appeals properly considered the facial nature of [tech industry lobby group] NetChoice's challenge," the court majority wrote.

Justices found that the lower courts focused too much on the biggest platforms, like Facebook and YouTube, without considering the wider effects of the laws. The majority wrote:

The courts mainly addressed what the parties had focused on. And the parties mainly argued these cases as if the laws applied only to the curated feeds offered by the largest and most paradigmatic social-media platforms—as if, say, each case presented an as-applied challenge brought by Facebook protesting its loss of control over the content of its News Feed. But argument in this Court revealed that the laws might apply to, and differently affect, other kinds of websites and apps. In a facial challenge, that could well matter, even when the challenge is brought under the First Amendment.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/07/the-dangers-of-sneezing-from-ejected-bowels-to-torn-windpipes/

If you were to envision the kind of accident that would cause a person's bowels to explode out of their body, you might imagine some sort of gruesome stabbing or grisly car accident. You'd probably never imagine that something as commonplace and harmless as a sneeze would cause this kind of ghastly injury—but that's exactly what happened to a Florida man earlier this month.

The man had recently had abdominal surgery and was suffering from wound dehiscence—where his surgical scar wasn't healing properly.

[...] Sneezing is normally a protective mechanism that keeps potentially harmful things—such as dust, bacteria and viruses – out of our respiratory system. The process is controlled by the so-called "sneezing center" in the brain's medulla (which governs autonomic functions, including breathing). It's activated by the presence of irritants in the lining of the nose and airways, which send impulses to the center.

The response is a closing of your eyes, throat and mouth while your chest muscles contract—compressing your lungs and driving air out of your respiratory system. This forces whatever triggered the response "out" of your system at an impressive speed—up to 15.9m/s (35mph) in some cases.

[...] Given all the potential injuries a sneeze can cause, you might think it's better to hold them in.

But even that isn't safe to do. In 2023, a Scottish man held in a sneeze by closing his mouth and holding his nose. This resulted in him tearing his windpipe. By closing off his airways, this allowed the pressure generated by the sneeze to build up inside the respiratory system—which can sometimes be up to 20 times the pressure normally seen in the respiratory system. But this energy has to go somewhere, so is typically absorbed by the tissues.

Others have fractured bones of their face holding in sneezes, damaged their larynx (voice box), and torn the tissues in their chest that protect the lungs.

Thankfully, there is one injury that would be impossible for a sneeze to cause. Ever been told that if you sneeze with your eyes open, it'll cause them to pop out? Thankfully, that's just a tall tale.

Original Submission

oregonjohn writes:

Propublica report July 8, 2024 https://www.propublica.org/article/cyber-safety-board-never-investigated-solarwinds-breach-microsoft

"After Russian intelligence launched one of the most devastating cyber espionage attacks in history against U.S. government agencies, the Biden administration set up a new board and tasked it to figure out what happened — and tell the public."

"The intruders used malicious code and a flaw in a Microsoft product to steal intelligence from the National Nuclear Security Administration, National Institutes of Health and the Treasury Department in what Microsoft President Brad Smith called "the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen.""

"A full, public accounting of what happened in the Solar Winds case would have been devastating to Microsoft. ProPublica recently revealed that Microsoft had long known about — but refused to address — a flaw used in the hack. The tech company's failure to act reflected a corporate culture that prioritized profit over security and left the U.S. government vulnerable, a whistleblower said."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Meta continues to hit walls with its heavily scrutinized plan to comply with the European Union's strict online competition law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), by offering Facebook and Instagram subscriptions as an alternative for privacy-inclined users who want to opt out of ad targeting.

Today, the European Commission (EC) announced preliminary findings that Meta's so-called "pay or consent" or "pay or OK" model—which gives users a choice to either pay for access to its platforms or give consent to collect user data to target ads—is not compliant with the DMA.

According to the EC, Meta's advertising model violates the DMA in two ways. First, it "does not allow users to opt for a service that uses less of their personal data but is otherwise equivalent to the 'personalized ads-based service." And second, it "does not allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data," the press release said.

[...] "The DMA is there to give back to the users the power to decide how their data is used and ensure innovative companies can compete on equal footing with tech giants on data access," Breton said.

A Meta spokesperson told Ars that Meta plans to fight the findings—which could trigger fines up to 10 percent of the company's worldwide turnover, as well as fines up to 20 percent for repeat infringement if Meta loses.

Meta continues to claim that its "subscription for no ads" model was "endorsed" by the highest court in Europe, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), last year.

[...] However, some critics have noted that the supposed endorsement was not an official part of the ruling and that particular case was not regarding DMA compliance.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.mattblaze.org/blog/neinnines/

I picked up the new book Compromised last week and was intrigued to discover that it may have shed some light on a small (and rather esoteric) cryptologic and espionage mystery that I've been puzzling over for about 15 years. Compromised is primarily a memoir of former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok's investigation into Russian operations in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election, but this post is not a review of the book or concerned with that aspect of it.

Early in the book, as an almost throwaway bit of background color, Strzok discusses his work in Boston investigating the famous Russian "illegals" espionage network from 2000 until their arrest (and subsequent exchange with Russia) in 2010. "Illegals" are foreign agents operating abroad under false identities and without official or diplomatic cover. In this case, ten Russian illegals were living and working in the US under false Canadian and American identities. (The case inspired the recent TV series The Americans.)

Strzok was the case agent responsible for two of the suspects, Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova (posing as a Canadian couple under the aliases Donald Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley). The author recounts watching from the street on Thursday evenings as Vavilova received encrypted shortwave "numbers" transmissions in their Cambridge, MA apartment.

Given that Bezrukov and Vaviloa were indeed, as the FBI suspected, Russian spies, it's not surprising that they were sent messages from headquarters using this method; numbers stations are part of time-honored espionage tradecraft for communicating with covert agents. But their capture may have illustrated how subtle errors can cause these systems to fail badly in practice, even when the cryptography itself is sound.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The UN's Radio Regulations Board (RRB) has asked Russia to play nice with Europe and not interfere with satellites.

The RRB, a part of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the telecom agency for the United Nations, held its 96th meeting [PDF] last week to discuss a number of topics, including alleged satellite interference several European countries suspect is coming from Russia. France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Ukraine all said they had experienced some sort of interference in the last few months.

The disruption has resulted in taking down broadcasts and even TV hijacking in two cases, which involved children's TV shows in the Netherlands being replaced with Russian war videos.

Although Russia has denied any knowledge of the interference, telling the RRB it hasn't detected any whatsoever, the evidence is stacking up against the country. The interference has largely targeted channels with Ukrainian programming, and Sweden claims it only started seeing meddling after it joined NATO.

Perhaps most damning of all, two satellite operators traced the interference to three sites: Russia's capital city Moscow, the Kaliningrad exclave next to Poland and Lithuania, and Pavlovka, though it remains unclear which Pavlovka, as there are more than one located in Russia.

Calling the interference "extremely worrisome and unacceptable," the RRB has told Russia to stop messing with the satellites, give the agency info surrounding Russia's internal investigation of the interference, and search the areas that the satellite operators say the interference originates from.

However, the agency softened its stance by saying it wouldn't grant requests made by France, Sweden, and the Netherlands to pursue the matter with a formal investigation just yet.

In the meantime, the RRB has asked Russia and its alleged victims to "exercise the utmost goodwill and mutual assistance" and to hold a meeting to discuss the dispute. It's not clear how effective this will be as Russia doesn't exactly have a stellar diplomatic reputation.

Original Submission

Runaway1956 writes:

https://www.advrider.com/survue-ai-powered-danger-detector-bicycle-tech-that-could-work-for-motorcyclists/

A radar system can indicate when another motorist is close to your vehicle, but what if it gave you more information—like, a warning of sketchy driving behaviors? A US-based startup is building such a system for bicyclists, but Survue's new technology might also have an application for motorcyclists.

Electro-safety systems are the latest add-on that motorcycle OEMs are pioneering, having reached the practical limits of power and braking. These days, the action is all in the world of adaptive cruise control systems, which are governed by radar sensors. These smart systems can keep you following another vehicle at a constant distance in traffic, and they can also warn you that someone is approaching quickly from behind.

Survue's technology takes this idea a step further. Rear-facing radar systems have been available for bicyclists for years, but they can't interpret the information they collect. Survue's system uses AI (or so they call it) to analyze the data taken in by its sensors, and then their on-bike gadgetry can inform the rider of an impending dangerous situation—a too-close pass or a rear-end collision—and it can also flash a brake light brightly, to alert a distracted driver of an impending crash.

Survue says it works this way:

Videos of collisions from behind and close passing vehicles are recorded using the predicted vehicle course rather than accelerometers. This reduces false positives and endless sifting of video data. Survue is the only taillight that automatically records close passing vehicles ... Cyclists receive alerts based upon approaching vehicle speed, direction, and vehicle type rather than just the speed.

Their assembly on the back of the bike has a brake light that flashes for the benefit of following motorists, as well as an onboard speaker that emits a tone to alert the rider of the situatuion. Their device also connects to an app which can give audio or visual cues, so the rider isn't startled.

Sifting through their Kickstarter campaign here, you can see how the technology is designed for bicyclists, but could definitely be adapted for motorcyclists. No doubt some of the big OEMs are already working on similar tech, and if not, once they see this they will be. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/survue/survue-the-smart-bike-light-for-safe-and-confident-rides/

So, AI again. Almost certainly overhyped - but - cyclists (whether bicycles or motorcycles) need all the help they can get in traffic. I mean, sure, I know there's a car behind me, but I can't spend all my time studying how that car is driven. An "AI" that is constantly analyzing the traffic flow could save my arse. OK, so maybe it doesn't save me, but at least it documents that the driver rear ended me. It should even record the license plate number, in states/provinces that have a front license plate.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

There's a new bill before federal parliament calling for housing to be considered a fundamental human right.

The bill, introduced by independent federal parliamentarians Kylea Tink and David Pocock, would require the government to create a 10-year National Housing and Homelessness Plan.

One part of the bill states housing should be considered a fundamental human right for all Australians. Here's how this would work.

Since its election in 2022, the Albanese government has had to fight political battles to pass its housing policies.

This includes the Housing Australia Future Fund: a $10 billion fund to provide an annual $500 million for social and affordable rental housing. It passed the parliament last year.

There's also the "Help to Buy" shared equity scheme. Under this scheme, 10,000 households a year would be eligible for a government equity contribution of up to 40% of the purchase price of a new home. It's yet to pass the parliament.

But many in the community continue to struggle with unaffordable rents, barriers to home ownership and rising rates of homelessness.

Housing and homelessness problems are complex because they crossover different areas of policy and different levels of government. There are many agencies that do housing policy.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The right to repair movement may be gaining traction, with several states passing laws that force companies to improve the repairability of their products, but a trio of letters the Federal Trade Commission just sent to firms that market and sell gaming PCs, graphics chips, motherboards, and other accessories show that resistance by manufacturers is as strong as ever.

The Federal Trade Commission staff has sent letters to ASRock, Zotac, and Gigabyte warning that their warranty practices may be violating consumers' right to repair products they have purchased. Namely, the commission singled out the use of stickers containing "warranty void if removed" or similar language as illegal. These are usually placed on products in such a way that makes it difficult for consumers to perform routine maintenance and repairs on their products, the FTC said.

"These warning letters put companies on notice that restricting consumers' right to repair violates the law," said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "The commission will continue our efforts to protect consumers' right to repair and independent dealers' right to compete."

[...] Illegal warranties are just the tip of the problem, consumer advocates say, as manufacturers try all sorts of tactics to control the repair process – and these tactics are working. Americans waste $40 billion each year from not being able to repair products, according to a report by the US PIRG, a public-interest research group. That comes to about $330 per household annually.

"It's getting harder for people to buy things that are repairable. The problem is getting worse, much worse," said Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of the Repair Association, a small lobbying group that advocates for independent repair shops.

One example is the use of components that are glued or soldered together.

"Ten years ago you could slide off the back of the phone, and pop out the battery," said Olivia Webb, spokesperson for iFixit, a parts retailer and online community dedicated to repair. "Now, they are adhered with screws, battery pull tabs, some of them are glued in. People don't want you to replace your battery – they want you to buy a new phone."

[...] "You're hitting a point where you cannot upgrade your technology anymore. And I think that is another way of forcing people to buy a new machine instead of upgrading an old machine," she said.

Proprietary screws are another example. Disassembling the iPhone 12 requires four different types of screwdrivers, according to Hugh Jeffreys, an advocate of the Right to Repair movement.

Manufacturers are also not shying away from engaging in outright illegal practices that the FTC has called out. For example, many companies still have warranties that are voided if anyone, except the company that made the product, has repaired it. A few years ago the FTC warned six companies against such void-warranty language. The recipients were eventually revealed to be ASUSTeK, HTC, Hyundai, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony Computer Entertainment.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Two slightly burnt, fat-covered sticks discovered inside an Australian cave are evidence of a healing ritual that was passed down unchanged by more than 500 generations of Indigenous people over the last 12,000 years, according to new research.

The wooden sticks, found poking out of tiny fireplaces, showed that the ritual documented in the 1880s had been shared via oral traditions since the end of the last ice age, a study in the journal Nature Human Behaviour said on Monday.

The discovery was made inside Cloggs Cave in the foothills of the Victorian Alps in Australia's southeast, in a region long inhabited by the Gunaikurnai people.

[...] Carefully digging through the soil, the team found a small stick poking out—then they found another one. Both well-preserved sticks were made from the wood of casuarina trees.

Each one was found in a separate fireplace around the size of the palm of a hand—far too small to have been used for heat or cooking meat.

The slightly charred ends of the sticks had been cut specially to stick into the fire, and both were coated in human or animal fat.

One stick was 11,000 years old and the other 12,000 years old, radiocarbon dating found.

"They've been waiting here all this time for us to learn from them," said Gunaikurnai elder Russell Mullett, a co-author of the study and head of GLaWAC.

Mullett spent years trying to find out what they could have been used for, before discovering the accounts of Alfred Howitt, a 19th-century Australian anthropologist who studied Aboriginal culture.

Some of Howitt's notes had never been published, and Mullett said he spent a long time convincing a local museum to share them.