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The Onion Buys InfoWars

looorg writes:

https://apnews.com/article/onion-buys-infowars-alex-jones-6496f198d141c991087dcd937b3588e9
https://theonion.com/heres-why-i-decided-to-buy-infowars/

Make no mistake: This is a coup for our company and a well-deserved victory for multinational elites the world over.

The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones' Infowars at a bankruptcy auction. Plans to turn the site into a parody and satire site. It will probably be hard to tell apart from the old site then?

One assumes there is a large overlap of readers between the two. People with a strained connection to reality.

The Onion Buys InfoWars in Bankruptcy Auction

upstart writes:

The Onion buys InfoWars in bankruptcy auction - NewsBreak:

The satirical website The Onion purchased InfoWars on Thursday, a capstone on years of litigation and bankruptcy proceedings following InfoWars founder Alex Jones' defamation of families associated with the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Those families backed The Onion's bid to purchase InfoWars' intellectual property, including its website, customer lists and inventory, certain social media accounts and the production equipment used to put Jones on the air. The Connecticut families agreed to forgo a portion of their recovery to increase the overall value of The Onion's bid, enabling its success.

MORE: Alex Jones still must pay $1B judgment: Judge

The families said the purchase would put an end to Jones' misinformation campaign.

"We were told this outcome would be nearly impossible, but we are no strangers to impossible fights. The world needs to see that having a platform does not mean you are above accountability -- the dissolution of Alex Jones' assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for," said Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting.

In 2022, the families that brought the case against Jones in Connecticut secured a $1.4 billion verdict in their defamation lawsuit. A Texas bankruptcy court ruled on the liquidation of Jones' assets in June of this year, handing over control to an independent trustee tasked with selling them off to generate the greatest possible value for the families.

"From day one, these families have fought against all odds to bring true accountability to Alex Jones and his corrupt business. Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones' ability to spread lies, pain and fear at scale. After surviving unimaginable loss with courage and integrity, they rejected Jones' hollow offers for allegedly more money if they would only let him stay on the air because doing so would have put other families in harm's way," said Chris Mattei, attorney for the Connecticut plaintiffs and partner at Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder.

Jones had filed for bankruptcy last year in a bid to avoid paying the billion-dollar judgment, but a judge ruled he still had to settle with the Sandy Hook families.

Bankruptcy often staves off legal judgments but not if they are the result of willful and malicious injury. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston decided that standard was satisfied in Jones' case.

"[I]n Jones's case, the language of the jury instruction confirms that the damages awarded flow from the allegation of intent to harm the Plaintiffs – not allegations of recklessness," Lopez wrote in his ruling.

Jones had claimed on his InfoWars show that the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School -- which killed 26 people, including 20 elementary students -- was performed by actors following a script written by government officials to bolster the push for gun control.

We've Done It

After almost 2 years and a lot of hard work by many people, we have finally achieved what we set out to do. On Wednesday, the Linode servers were decommissioned, and the site is now completely independent and running on its own hardware. All the site data and the domains belong to the community - yes, you own this site.

It could not have been possible without the dedication of quite a few people - some of whom have not made it to today. It wasn't pleasant and it wasn't easy. There were numerous meetings to create a new set of Bylaws. That in itself took many months of often acrimonious debate. Everyone wanted the same end, but they were not happy with how it was being achieved. In the end, as is always the case, it required a lot of compromise, and it meant we needed to say goodbye to the old way of doing things. So to all of those who participated in those meetings: mechanicjay, AudioGuy, Deucalion, Fnord666, MartyB, Separatrix, cmn32480, kolie, hubie, mrpg, requerdanos, fab23, chromas, fliptop, dx3bydt3, tedious, cosurgi, Runaway1956, and even aristarchus, and many that I have probably missed out, a huge thank you from me. And if I have missed you out then that is entirely my fault and I apologise!

The Bylaws dictate how the business will be managed. They do not contain any rules about how the site will be used, or what is permitted in submissions or discussions and what is not, or any of those things that tend to interest the community. But there are some unique differences in our Bylaws from those previously. The Board (which I will get to in a moment) manage this site on your behalf. While they handle routine matters as appropriate to their post, many actions require them to seek the agreement of the community. You will have a say in major decisions. After all, you own the site. The data cannot be used for any purpose other than maintaining this site without a majority decision of the community.

So having created the Bylaws, we could apply to create a company. This was necessary so that the new company (Soylent Phoenix) could receive whatever assets the original company (SoylentNews PBC) was prepared to transfer. For legal reasons, the Board members cannot be anonymous; they have to sign various pieces of legal documentation to create the company. So I asked for volunteers from the community. More than we needed stepped forward and so the business was created. The Chairman of the Board is OregonJohn (6105), the Treasurer is Dale (539) (and he is actually a qualified accountant!), and the Secretary is holeinone (17639). They have also been working hard on your behalf setting up the company, creating Stripe accounts, managing the current funds, and filling in the paperwork that is associated with a business. Technically the Board is a temporary one because they do not yet have the approval of the community. But that is built into the Bylaws, and it allows us to keep moving forward until their posts are confirmed by the community, or challenged by someone else who believes they should be allowed to do the job.

Next came the transfer of assets. Like all things this did not go as smoothly as everyone had hoped it would. Quite understandably, it was necessary for everything to be accountable and legal, and to look after everyone's interests. Again, it was only by having some tough discussions and making compromises on both sides that anything has actually been achieved. So another thank-you to NCommander and Matt Angel. I think we have a solution which, while not meeting all of our initial dreams, is one that we can live with for the future. The site never squandered money and there is nothing to suggest that your donations have been misused.

You will probably now all be aware that two people have donated hardware and a data connection at no cost to the site. Those people are kolie and fliptop, and they have my sincere thanks. Kolie's server is the one that you are using at the moment to read this Meta. In fact, it is handling all of the site including email, IRC, DNS, Varnish, the database, etc. etc. Fliptop's server is currently an off-site backup for our data but will probably require a bit of expansion before it will cope with the full Docker installation. You will also be aware that, over the recent weeks and months, kolie has built the entire software infrastructure into Docker containers, moving each function one by one from the Linode servers and incrementally adding it to our own hardware. He has put many man hours into this task and I for one have enjoyed working with him - although my contribution has been considerably less than his! Again, I offer my grateful thanks.

Finally, none of this would have been possible without the community being tolerant and understanding as we have encountered each unexpected obstacle. The community has, in fact, grown slightly in the last 2 years, but it remains at roughly 10% of what it once was. I thank you all for making this possible. Welcome to your site.

And now for something completely different....

Community Representatives

To provide the community with more visibility regarding the actions of staff and the reason and justification for those actions, we have created 3 posts which will act as Community Representatives. Their prime role is to provide the community with the assurance that management is behaving responsibly and within the rules governing the site, and for the community to have a focus when they have concerns regarding what is going on behind the 'curtains'. They will act as your voice in discussions and decisions. They will have full access to staff discussions but will only have limited access, and then only when absolutely necessary, to the data stored in the database. We have had 3 volunteers for these posts for many months, but I will provide more details once I have confirmed that they are still volunteering for the role, and when we have hammered out the working procedures that must be adopted for this system to function correctly.

TOR

We now have TOR up and running again - we had it quite a few years ago and then it disappeared. Eventually, the link will be in the SoylentNews side panel on your screen, but for now it is cut and paste:

http://soylentqarvi3ikkzpp7fn4m5pxeeonbv6kr4akgkczqethjfhmalhid.onion

Elections

As I mentioned earlier, technically the current board is temporary. If you wish to stand for a post then you may do so. We will be asking for nominations in the near future. However, remember that you cannot remain anonymous as your name has to be recorded on the official business records.

We will provide you with a Meta page should you wish to explain to the community why you believe that they should vote for you. The method of voting will be 1 vote per active account, which must be in good standing (i.e. meet a minimum karma level and not be currently banned). The software that will be used is still under consideration as the original voting software was written and operated by audioguy who is not currently taking an active part in the site management.

You cannot nominate someone else for a post. They have to put themselves forward as a candidate. You can of course vote for them should they do so.

realDonaldTrump Account

Accounts that have been dormant for over 5 years quickly attract attention when they suddenly re-appear. In recent years we have seen attempts to resurrect old accounts, sometimes by people other than the original owner. There is an option built in to Rehash which is named "Force User to Verify Account" (FUVA) and it appears on the user's administration page. It simply resets the password and sends the new password to the email address that we hold for that account in the database. The account holder can then reset the password to something of their own choosing and everything works as it should. Currently, it is invoked automatically after the 5-year point if the account becomes active again. About a week ago the "realDonaldTrump" (rDT) account suddenly sprang back into life, having been dormant since 2019, and for the most part it was welcomed by the community. However, by making a comment the FUVA triggered.

I think that the account holder has either forgotten how to access his email or the email address has lapsed for some other reason. So the account is now stuck in limbo. Without a working email contact we cannot send the new password to the account holder. I do NOT want to know who the account owner is. However, they must provide a working email address, which can be a temporary or throw-away address, and they must provide sufficient detail about the account to prove that they are the true account owners. The site can be reactivated as a parody account which will have specific restrictions associated with it.

Community Involvement

Although the site is now independent and 'under new management' there is still much that remains to be done.

• For the present the rules that we have inherited will remain in force, but they will have to be rewritten and approved by the community to take us into the future.
• We will need people to assist with the sys-admin role - which is more Docker management than anything else. Interested people do not have to currently know or use Docker, I am sure that we can provide guidance on acquiring those skills and then explaining the current site structure. It is much simpler than it once was.
• We are investigating how to create a separate environment for both testing code before it is integrated into the main site and as a training facility.
• As ever, we need your support by providing submissions and by participating in the discussions. There are 23 submissions in the queue but 17 of them by one of our 2 submission bots which many people dislike.

Potential Return of Anonymous Cowards to the Full Site

Over the last week or two the level of spamming and abuse has significantly reduced. However, the reasons for this are unclear, and it might not indicate a permanent or even long-lasting change. If the low level continues for a significant period (certainly into the New Year) then it might be possible to re-admit ACs to the whole site again. This is something that is we all want to see, and it would be a welcome enhancement to the site. However, it depends entirely on those few individuals who account for the vast majority of the spam and abuse.

If ACs are allowed back onto the full site then any permanent return is entirely dependent on the spamming remaining at a very low level, and for personal attacks to be rare events.

Withdrawn - It didn't even last until we got this Meta out. JR

c0lo writes:

Bluesky adds 700,000 new members as users flee X after the US election

Bluesky adds 700,000 new members as users flee X after the US election

Social media platform has become a 'refuge' from the far-right activism on X, experts say, after Elon Musk teamed up with Donald Trump
Luca Ittimani
Tue 12 Nov 2024 13.44 AEDT

Social media platform Bluesky has picked up more than 700,000 new users in the week since the US election, as users seek to escape misinformation and offensive posts on X.

The influx, largely from North America and the UK, has helped Bluesky reach 14.5 million users worldwide, up from 9 million in September, the company said.

Social media researcher Axel Bruns said the platform offered an alternative to X, formerly Twitter, including a more effective system for blocking or suspending problematic accounts and policing harmful behaviour.
...
"It's become a refuge for people who want to have the kind of social media experience that Twitter used to provide, but without all the far-right activism, the misinformation, the hate speech, the bots and everything else," he said.
...
The platform has previously benefited from dissatisfaction with X and its billionaire owner, Elon Musk, who is closely tied to US president-elect Donald Trump's successful election campaign. Twitter shed millions of users after rebranding to X and usage in the US slumped by more than a fifth in the subsequent seven months.

Bluesky reported picking up 3 million new users in the week after X was suspended in Brazil in September and a further 1.2 million in the two days after X announced it would allow users to view posts from people who had blocked them.

Snotnose writes:

The history of Heathkit, part 1 and part 2

If you came of age in the 1960s or 1970s and then later became an EE, chances are you're more than casually acquainted with Heathkit. Many engineers started their budding careers by building one or more kits made by the Heath Company. I certainly did. When I stumbled across a brief interview with Chas Gilmore, who joined the Heath Company in 1966 as a design engineer and worked at the Heath Company on and off for more than two decades, eventually becoming VP of product development, marketing, and sales, I knew I needed to interview him.

Teenage me built a shortwave radio and a HAM transmitter for myself, and a TV for a neighbor.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The funding is part of a total of €380m and falls under the Chips Joint Undertaking.

The European Union is set to invest €133m in production facilities for photonic semiconductors in the Netherlands.

The PIXEurope consortium, which consists of parties from 11 countries including the Netherlands, has been selected for contract negotiations to develop a European pilot plant for photonic chips.

It follows one month after Italy-based start-up Ephos had raised $8.5m to create glass-based photonic chips at scale.

Photonic semiconductors use light rather than electrons to perform calculations, with advantages in speed and power consumption. As a result, this makes them ideal for use in areas such as data centres and also in motoring.

[...] The investment forms part of a total amount of €380m aimed at setting up pilot photonic semiconductor production plants throughout Europe, under the Chips Joint Undertaking, which centres around a European public-private partnership to promote research and development in the semiconductor industry.

Work on the Dutch facilities is expected to start in 2025, and will be led by the universities of Eindhoven and Twente, in association with the Dutch knowledge institute TNO.

Europe has been making a concerted effort over the past few years to be a leader in the semiconductor space. In 2023, the region adopted the EU Chips Act, which aims to increase the EU’s share of global chip production from 10pc to at least 20pc by the end of the decade.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

"There is a big desire for big changes."

NASA's plagued Space Launch System rocket, which is being developed to deliver the first astronauts to the Moon in over half a century, is on thin ice.

[....] there's an "at least 50-50" chance that the rocket "will be canceled."

[....] "Not Block 1B. Not Block 2," [...] All of it.

[....] The SLS has already seen its fair share of budget overruns and many years of delays. In a 2022 interview, former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver told Futurism that the project is simply "not sustainable."

The rocket platform has become a political football, going well past $6 billion over budget and over half a decade behind schedule.

[....] "I will be direct," former NASA administrator Michael Griffin told the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee during a January hearing on the space agency's Artemis program, [...] "In my judgment, the Artemis Program is excessively complex, unrealistically priced, compromises crew safety, poses very high mission risk of completion, and is highly unlikely to be completed in a timely manner even if successful."

[....] According to an August report by NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG), even just the price of the tower designed to launch rockets starting with Artemis IV, which is tentatively scheduled for 2028, has ballooned to a whopping $1.8 billion.

Plagued aerospace giant Boeing has also encountered plenty of headwinds with its contributions to the launch platform. In a separate September report by the OIG, the SLS' Block 1B configuration, which is being built by Boeing, was found to be woefully behind and way over budget.

"We found an array of issues that could hinder SLS Block 1B's readiness for Artemis IV including Boeing's inadequate quality management system, escalating costs and schedules, and inadequate visibility into the Block 1B's projected costs," the report reads.

To reiterate, the SLS is a non-reusable rocket, which means that NASA will have to build entirely new rocket stages for each upcoming Artemis mission. That's in stark contrast to SpaceX's fully reusable Starship, which the space agency is still hoping to tap for Artemis III, the first crewed trip to the Moon's surface.

[...rest omitted...]

Who among ULA, Boeing, Blue Origin, SpaceX, Roscosmos, and others might be a piece of the pie?

Original Submission

Australian Cabinet Proposes Social Media Ban For Under-16s

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The Australia government has proposed 16 as the minimum age for minors to use social media and lays the onus on platforms to demonstrate reasonable actions to prevent any younger users. However, the government did not explain how it expects platforms to enforce the age limits.

In a statement to the press today (7 November), Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said that the government’s proposed minimum age legislation will be introduced when the country’s parliament returns in two weeks, and if passed, will come into force a year later.

[...] The proposed new legislation enforces a blanket ban on everyone under 16 from using social media, including those already on it and those with parental consent.

“The fact is that social media has a social responsibility, but the platforms are falling short,” said the Australian minister for communications, Michelle Rowland.

“What we are announcing here and what we will legislate will be truly world leading,”

Rowland said that the platforms that do not comply will face penalties under the proposed Act – which under current legislation are less than A$1m.

Australia To Ban Social Media Until Age Of 16

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The Australian government has confirmed it will create legislation that bans access to social media for people under the age of 16.

"The Bill builds upon the Australian Government's work to address online harms for young people, including the $6.5 million age assurance trial, establishing an online dating apps code, legislating new criminal penalties for non-consensual sexual deepfakes, and quadrupling base funding for the eSafety Commissioner," explained a notice from the prime minister's office on November 8.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government has worked toward the plan for months, but only late last week did it finally receive backing from the National Cabinet.

[...] Services that primarily provide education and health services will not be included in the ban. The nation's eSafety Commissioner will handle oversight and enforcement. Under the current legislation, maximum fines are less than a million dollars.

The new bill "puts the onus" on social media platforms instead of parents to make sure fundamental protections are in place, the notice stated.

[...] The Prime Minister specified there will be no penalties for users. There are also no exemptions from the policy with parental consent or "grandfathering in" for those who already have accounts.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The operator of the longest-running money laundering machine in dark web history, Bitcoin Fog, has been sentenced to 12 years and six months in US prison.

Roman Sterlingov, 36, a Russian-Swedish national, was also ordered to repay more than half a billion dollars accrued from the cryptocurrency mixing service that he ran for a decade between 2011 and 2021.

Bitcoin Fog was assessed to have processed 1.2 million Bitcoin during that time, worth roughly $400 million at the time it was shuttered. Of this, Sterlingov was ordered to repay $395,563,025.39 in restitution, forfeit roughly $1.76 million in seized assets, and relinquish control of Bitcoin Fog's wallet containing more than $100 million in Bitcoin.

He was found guilty back in March, at which point he faced a maximum 50-year sentence. Prosecutors said the vast majority of Sterlingov's wealth came from the proceeds of crime in which he and his online service helped criminals hide from law enforcement.

The court heard that the crimes associated with this activity included the sale of drugs, computer misuse offenses, identity theft, and child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

"Roman Sterlingov laundered over $400 million in criminal proceeds through Bitcoin Fog, his cryptocurrency 'mixing' service that was open for business to criminals looking to hide dirty money," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M Argentieri, head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. 

[...] There are many cryptocurrency mixers available to criminals, so the downfall of Bitcoin Fog won't put a significant dent in their use. However, investigators will be pleased that a service as relied upon as Sterlingov's could be scuppered and distrust sown throughout the community of criminals who use them.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Massachusetts has passed a statewide ballot initiative that gives rideshare drivers the opportunity to unionize while remaining independent contractors. The initiative was brought forward by the Service Employees International Union and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. It passed with a narrow margin of about 54 percent of the vote.

The measure will allow the state's 70,000 rideshare drivers to form unions and leverage collective bargaining power, which is not permitted for independent contractors under the National Labor Relations Act. These workers can unionize if they receive signatures from at least 25 percent of active drivers in Massachusetts. The initiative also creates a hearing process so that drivers for companies such as Lyft and Uber can bring complaints about unfair work practices to a state board. However, the ballot initiative does not contain language about strike protections. It also does not extend to food delivery drivers.

Uber and Lyft did not actively campaign against the Massachusetts measure, but they have raised concerns about the specific language. Some labor advocates also opposed the initiative, cautioning that it could hamper efforts for rideshare drivers to win recognition as full-time employees. "We're not against unionization," Kelly Cobb-Lemire, an organizer with Massachusetts Drivers United, told The New York Times. "But we don't feel this goes far enough."

Independent contractors often are not protected by federal or state labor laws because they aren't full-time employees. The Massachusetts ballot measure could create a precedent for other states to offer unionization options for gig workers. California has been a battleground for labor protections for gig workers who drive for Uber and Lyft for several years. Most recently, a court allowed California drivers to retain independent contractor status.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Silicon transistors, which are used to amplify and switch signals, are a critical component in most electronic devices, from smartphones to automobiles. But silicon semiconductor technology is held back by a fundamental physical limit that prevents transistors from operating below a certain voltage.

This limit, known as “Boltzmann tyranny,” hinders the energy efficiency of computers and other electronics, especially with the rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies that demand faster computation.

In an effort to overcome this fundamental limit of silicon, MIT researchers fabricated a different type of three-dimensional transistor using a unique set of ultrathin semiconductor materials.

Their devices, featuring vertical nanowires only a few nanometers wide, can deliver performance comparable to state-of-the-art silicon transistors while operating efficiently at much lower voltages than conventional devices.

“This is a technology with the potential to replace silicon, so you could use it with all the functions that silicon currently has, but with much better energy efficiency,” says Yanjie Shao, an MIT postdoc and lead author of a paper on the new transistors.

[...] In electronic devices, silicon transistors often operate as switches. Applying a voltage to the transistor causes electrons to move over an energy barrier from one side to the other, switching the transistor from “off” to “on.” By switching, transistors represent binary digits to perform computation.

A transistor’s switching slope reflects the sharpness of the “off” to “on” transition. The steeper the slope, the less voltage is needed to turn on the transistor and the greater its energy efficiency.

But because of how electrons move across an energy barrier, Boltzmann tyranny requires a certain minimum voltage to switch the transistor at room temperature.

To overcome the physical limit of silicon, the MIT researchers used a different set of semiconductor materials — gallium antimonide and indium arsenide — and designed their devices to leverage a unique phenomenon in quantum mechanics called quantum tunneling.

Quantum tunneling is the ability of electrons to penetrate barriers. The researchers fabricated tunneling transistors, which leverage this property to encourage electrons to push through the energy barrier rather than going over it.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

NASA's Voyager mission beamed back unprecedented views. It also sent back some mysteries.

One of these came in 1986, when the Voyager 2 probe — one of a duo of Voyager craft sent into deep space — journeyed by the ice giant Uranus, a strange world rotating on its side. When the mission passed by, its instruments detected strong radiation around Uranus, yet, curiously, didn't find any source of energized particles to feed these zones of radiation.

For decades, the observation has been an enigma. But not anymore. Recent analysis of Voyager's old data found that extreme solar wind — a flow of particles shooting out from the sun — impacted the environs around Uranus and created the abnormal episode.

"The spacecraft saw Uranus in conditions that only occur about 4 percent of the time," Jamie Jasinski, a NASA physicist who led the new research published in Nature Astronomy, said in a statement.

[...] When the solar wind hit Uranus' magnetosphere, it compressed the distant planet's magnetosphere, and squeezed out the plasma (hot gas composed of electrically charged particles) that naturally surrounds Uranus. Instead, the solar wind injected its own particles into radiation belts around Uranus. This explains why the Uranus environment was so irradiated — but didn't seem to have an obvious source of radiation.

These results also suggest that some of Uranus' five moons aren't dead, after all. The lack of plasma around the planet hinted that the moons weren't geologically active, because unlike other active moons of our solar system (like Jupiter's ocean moon Europa), it appeared Uranus' satellites emitted no charged water molecules. But that might not be the case.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A judge based in Oakland, California has ruled that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg cannot be held personally liable in 25 separate lawsuits alleging harm caused by social media.

On 7 November, US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected accusations that Zuckerberg acted to conceal from child users the mental health risks of using Facebook and Instagram, which both come under the parent organisation Meta.

She submitted her decision via a 10-page filing, according to Business Insider.

The plaintiffs in the case claimed that Zuckerberg ignored a number of repeated internal warnings about the mental health risks posed by his platforms to young users and that he publicly downplayed them.

[...] The plaintiffs brought claims under the laws of 13 states: Wisconsin, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.

Explaining her decision, Gonzalez Rogers said that control of corporate activity alone is not enough to establish liability on the part of Zuckerberg.

[...] Meta has been accused of failing to protect its users for some time now. In 2021, whistleblower Frances Haugen shared internal research from the company, which became known as the Facebook Files. One article about these files claimed that Meta had internal research that showed Instagram to be damaging to the mental health and wellbeing of teenage girls.

And last year, another whistleblower – Arturo Béjar – spoke out against the company’s practices, with claims that the tech giant is aware of the harm teenagers face on its platforms but has failed to act.

At the time, Béjar said the platform opted to give users “placebo” tools that fail to address issues such as teenagers seeing harmful content, having their mental health impacted and receiving “unwanted sexual advances” on Instagram.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Waiting for each part of a 3D-printed project to finish, taking it out of the printer, and then installing it on location can be tedious for multi-part projects. What if there was a way for your printer to print its creation exactly where you needed it? That's the promise of MobiPrint, a new 3D printing robot that can move around a room, printing designs directly onto the floor.

MobiPrint, designed by Daniel Campos Zamora at the University of Washington, consists of a modified off-the-shelf 3D printer atop a home vacuum robot. First it autonomously maps its space---be it a room, a hallway, or an entire floor of a house. Users can then choose from a prebuilt library or upload their own design to be printed anywhere in the mapped area. The robot then traverses the room and prints the design.

[...] Campos Zamora and his team started with a Roborock S5 vacuum robot and installed firmware that allowed it to communicate with the open source program Valetudo. Valetudo disconnects personal robots from their manufacturer's cloud, connecting them to a local server instead. Data collected by the robot, such as environmental mapping, movement tracking, and path planning, can all be observed locally, enabling users to see the robot's LIDAR-created map.

Campos Zamora built a layer of software that connects the robot's perception of its environment to the 3D printer's print commands. The printer, a modified Prusa Mini+, can print on carpet, hardwood, and vinyl, with maximum printing dimensions of 180 by 180 by 65 millimeters. The robot has printed pet food bowls, signage, and accessibility markers as sample objects.

[...] We had to step back and build this entirely different thing, using the environment as a design element. We asked: how do you integrate the real world environment into the design process, and then what kind of things can you print out in the world? That's how this printer was born.

Original Submission

NotSanguine writes:

BleepingComputer is reporting that D-Link will not fix security issues associated with CVE 2024-10194 on up to 60,000 of its older NAS devices.

From the article:

More than 60,000 D-Link network-attached storage devices that have reached end-of-life are vulnerable to a command injection vulnerability with a publicly available exploit.

The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-10914, has a critical 9.2 severity score and is present in the 'cgi_user_add' command where the name parameter is insufficiently sanitized.

An unauthenticated attacker could exploit it to inject arbitrary shell commands by sending specially crafted HTTP GET requests to the devices.

The flaw impacts multiple models of D-Link network-attached storage (NAS) devices that are commonly used by small businesses:

• DNS-320 Version 1.00

• DNS-320LW Version 1.01.0914.2012

• DNS-325 Version 1.01, Version 1.02

• DNS-340L Version 1.08

In a technical write-up that provides exploit details, security researcher Netsecfish says that leveraging the vulnerability requires sending "a crafted HTTP GET request to the NAS device with malicious input in the name parameter."

curl "http://[Target-IP]/cgi-bin/account_mgr.cgi cmd=cgi_user_add&name=%27;<INJECTED_SHELL_COMMAND>;%27"

"This curl request constructs a URL that triggers the cgi_user_add command with a name parameter that includes an injected shell command," the researcher explains.
[...]
In a security bulletin today, D-Link has confirmed that a fix for CVE-2024-10914 is not coming and the vendor recommends that users retire vulnerable products.

If that is not possible at the moment, users should at least isolate them from the public internet or place them under stricter access conditions.

Is this the appropriate way for D-Link to handle this? When told that a previously discovered (the existence of which has previously been disclosed to them) vulnerability will be made public, notify the world that the affected devices are "end-of-life" and "end-of-service"?

Do any Soylentils have one of the affected devices? (If so, please place your bank/credit/loan account details on those devices and provide us with IP addresses. Thanks!)

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

US-based glass manufacturer Corning is the company behind Gorilla Glass, a break-resistant glass used to protect screens that’s used on essentially all of the most popular smartphones. Today, the European Commission announced an investigation into Corning for anti-competitive practices, alleging that the glassmaker is preventing competition through exclusive supply agreements.

According to the press release, Corning requires mobile phone manufacturers to source all or nearly all of their alkali-AS glass from it, and it also grants rebates to these companies if they do so. Additionally, these phone makers must tell Corning if they receive competitive offers from other glass manufacturers. They aren’t allowed to accept these offers unless Corning cannot match or beat the price.

Similarly, Corning has agreements with companies that process raw glass, forcing them to get all or most of their alkali-AS glass from Corning. They also aren’t allowed to challenge Corning patents.

These charges reinforce how aggressive Corning is in defending its dominant position in the smartphone glass screen market. The latest Apple and Android devices, like the Google Pixel 9, usually have Gorilla Glass screens, as they’re scratch-resistant and prevent cracking or breaking. While not indestructible, the glass does hold up well against damage. However, Corning’s market dominance coupled with these practices are enough to get the EU’s attention.

Original Submission