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Why are there so many five-star reviews for an iPhone charger on Amazon with a voltage irregularity that can cause permanent damage? "It's sad to imagine how many shoppers spotted this $13.99 charger pack on Amazon's first-page results and fell for the thousands of positive reviews and the algorithmically-generated endorsement from a platform that people trust more than religion," reports The Hustle.

A spot-check confirmed that "10 of the 22 first-page results on Amazon for 'iPhone charger' were products with thousands of 5-star reviews, all unverified and posted within a few days of each other," and they've now investigated "the underbelly of Amazon's fake-review economy" and "how such a product, peddled by a ragtag troupe of e-commerce scammers, managed to game one of the world's premier technology companies." The fake Amazon review economy is a thriving market, ripe with underground forums, "How To Game The Rankings!" tutorials, and websites with names like (now-defunct) "amazonverifiedreviews.com." But the favored hunting grounds for sellers on the prowl is Amazon's fellow tech behemoth, Facebook. In a recent two-week period, I identified more than 150 private Facebook groups where sellers openly exchange free products (and, in many cases, commissions) for 5-star reviews, sans disclosures. A sampling of 20 groups I analyzed collectively have more than 200,000 members. These groups seem to be in the midst of an online Gold Rush: Most are less than a year old, and in the past 30 days have attracted more than 50,000 new users... One stay-at-home mom from Kentucky told me she makes $200-300 per month leaving positive reviews for things like sleep masks, light bulbs, and AV cables...

Fake reviews have been an issue for Amazon since its inception, but the problem appears to have intensified in 2015, when Amazon.com began to court Chinese sellers. The decision has led to a flood of new products -- a 33% increase, by some accounts -- sold by hundreds of thousands of new sellers. Rooted in manufacturing hubs like Guangzhou and Shenzhen, they use Amazon's fulfillment program, FBA, to send large shipments of electronic goods directly to Amazon warehouses in the US. This rapid influx has spawned thousands of indistinguishable goods (chargers, cables, batteries, etc.). And it has prompted sellers to game the system. "It's a lot harder to sell on Amazon than it was 2 or 3 years ago," says Fahim Naim, an ex-Amazon manager who now runs an e-commerce consulting firm. "So a lot of sellers are trying to find shortcuts." Steve Lee, a Los Angeles-based vendor, is among them: "You have to play the game to sell now," he says. "And that game is cheating and breaking the law...."
The article points out that this is illegal. "Endorsements are required to be truthful," Mary Engel, Associate Director of the Federal Trade Commission's Division of Advertising Practices, tells the site. "If a reviewer has received something of value in exchange for their opinion, they need to clearly disclose that in the review." But instead, the review-watching site "ReviewMeta" analyzed 203 million Amazon reviews and found 11.3% (22.8 million) were untrustworthy -- while another site estimates the fake-review percentage is 30%. (Amazon's own estimate? "Less than 1%") ReviewMeta also spotted more than 2 million "unverified" reviews just in March of 2019 -- 99.6% of which were five-star. "They're almost all for these off-brand, cheap electronic products: Phone chargers, headphones, cables. Generic things that are super cheap to manufacture, have good margins, and get a ton of searches."

Though Amazon has sued over 1,000 fake-review sites to date, "Their way of handling it is reactive, not proactive," says the founder of ReviewMeta. "Amazon is a $900B company with thousands of brilliant engineers. I majored in construction management. It seems like they should be able to figure this one out."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In its annual Theatrical Home Entertainment Market Environment report, the Motion Picture Association of America described an immensely sharp drop-off of physical media sales over the past five years. According to the data, which was obtained from DEG and IHS Markit, global sales of video disc formats (which in this context means DVD, Blu-ray, and UltraHD Blu-ray) were $25.2 billion in 2014 but only $13.1 in 2018. That's a drop in the ballpark of 50 percent.

Don't expect 8K Blu-rays or other emerging quality-focused formats to turn the tide, either. Market data published by Forbes showed that the aging, low-definition DVD format still accounts for 57.9 percent of physical media sales, and 4K Blu-rays are only 5.3 percent. With drops that sharp, you'd expect apocalyptic financials for companies making and distributing movies. However, while there are certainly losers in this trend, the overall industry actually grew over the same period. Home entertainment spending grew 16 percent in 2018 thanks to surges in consumer spending on digital video services from players like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. The report says that subscriptions to online streaming services grew 27 percent globally to 613.3 million in 2018, surpassing cable subscriptions (at 556 million) for the first time ever. "However, cable still drives more overall revenue than streaming -- it was the highest revenue platform in 2018, with $118 billion globally," Ars notes.

An anonymous reader quotes Forbes: Tesla's stock dropped 8% Thursday on the news that Q1 deliveries fell 31% from the previous quarter. However, being a seasonal business, car companies usually compare their results against the same quarter from the previous year. On that basis, virtually all of the major car companies have said Q1 sales will be flat to 7% lower than last year. In contrast, Tesla's deliveries are up 110% from last year. From the one year perspective, Tesla is the only car company that is growing...

Yesterday's headlines which focused on the 31% decline are factually correct but misleading. Moreover, Tesla said that delays in deliveries to Europe and China caused "a large number of vehicle deliveries to shift to the second quarter. At the end of the first quarter, approximately 10,600 vehicles were in transit to customers globally..." Had Tesla managed the increased deliveries in Europe and China a little better, they might have come close to Wall Street's expectations.
On Friday, Tesla's stock bounced up 2.68%.

Slashdot reader Lije Baley writes: As the unusually long cold snap in the Pacific Northwest has both increased electric demand while decreasing snow melt and stream flows needed for hydroelectric generation, local power companies are asking their customers to conserve energy. Meanwhile, the region's last remaining nuclear plant has been a critical low-carbon resource for keeping the lights and heat on, as Forbes reports. "As reported by Annette Cary of the Tri-City Herald, the Bonneville Power Administration, which markets the electricity produced at the nuclear plant near Richland, asked Energy Northwest, the operator of the power plant, not to do anything that would prevent the plant from producing 100% power at all times during an unusually cold February across the state that increased the demand for electricity â" no maintenance activities, even on its turbine generator and in the transformer yard," reports Forbes. "Don't do anything that would stop the reliable and constant power output of nuclear."

"'No Touch' is requested by BPA when unusually hot or cold weather increases the demand for electricity, notes Mike Paoli, spokesman for Energy Northwest," the report adds. "Many regional transmission and system operators across the United States ask nuclear plants to keep running during extreme weather because nuclear plants are the least affected by bad weather. Columbia Generating Station has the capability to produce 1,207 MW, which is enough energy to power Seattle. And it is usually putting out all of this power at all times. Energy Northwest already has a diverse mix of non-fossil fuel generating systems that, in aggregate, produce over 10 billion kWhs of electricity each year while emitting less than 20 gCO2/kWh. The No Touch order at the Columbia Generating Station is expected to be lifted soon, although continued cold weather could require it to keep producing max power."

Two-fifths of Europe's AI startups do not use any AI programs in their products, according to a report that highlights the hype around the technology. From a report: Out of 2,830 startups in Europe who were classified as being AI companies, only 1,580 accurately fit that description according to the eye-opening stat on page 99 of a new report from MMC, a London-based venture capital firm. The label, which refers to computer systems that can perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, was simply wrong.

"We looked at every company, their materials, their product, the website, and product documents," says David Kelnar, head of research for MMC which has $400 million under management and a portfolio of 34 companies. "In 40% of cases we could find no mention of evidence of AI." In such cases, he added, "companies that people assume and think are AI companies are probably not."

An anonymous Slashdot reader writes from a report via Reuters: Despite persistent U.S. allegations of Chinese state spying, Britain said it is able to manage the security risks of using Huawei telecom equipments and has not seen any evidence of malicious activity by the company, a senior official said on Wednesday. Asked later whether Washington had presented Britain with any evidence to support its allegations, he told reporters: "I would be obliged to report if there was evidence of malevolence [...] by Huawei. And we're yet to have to do that. So I hope that covers it."

At the same time, German officials have told The Wall Street Journal that the country has made a "preliminary decision" to allow Huawei to bid on contracts for 5G networking. Catering to the surging populism, the U.S. has accused Huawei and other Chinese telecom equipments, along with European cars, as national security risks, even though the National Security Agency, American's cyber spying agency, was found to have wiretapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel, conducted economic espionage against France, and hacked into Chinese networks. Earlier this week, beleaguered Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei described the continued investigations by the U.S. into the Chinese firm -- including the arrest of his daughter and company CFO, Meng Wanzhou -- as politically motivated.

technology_dude writes: One by one, thresholds are being crossed where the collection and storage of personal data is accepted as routine. Being recorded by cameras at business locations, in public transportation, in schools, churches, and every other place imaginable. Recent headlines include "Singapore Airlines having cameras built into the seat back of personal entertainment systems," and "Arizona considering a bill to force some public workers to give up DNA samples (and even pay for it)." It seems to be a daily occurrence where we have crossed another line in how far we will go to accept massive surveillance as normal. Do we even have a line the sand that we would defend? Do we even see anything wrong with it? Absolute power corrupts absolutely and we continue to give knowledge of our personal lives (power) to others. If we continue down the same path, I suppose we deserve what we get? I want to shout "Stop the train, I want off!" but I fear my plea would be ignored. So who out there is more optimistic than I and can recommend some reading that will give me hope? Bill 1475 was introduced by Republican State Senator David Livingston and would require teachers, police officers, child day care workers, and many others to submit their DNA samples along with fingerprints to be stored in a database maintained by the Department of Public Safety. "While the database would be prohibited from storing criminal or medical records alongside the DNA samples, it would require the samples be accompanied by the person's name, Social Security number, date of birth and last known address," reports Gizmodo. "The living will be required to pay [a $250 processing fee] for this invasion of their privacy, but any dead body that comes through a county medical examiner's office would also be fair game to be entered into the database."

According to a report from Forbes, Samsung may be exiting the 4K Blu-ray player market. "After launching its first 4K players in 2017, the company didn't add any new players to its lineup in 2018," reports CNET. "A high-end player for 2019 along the lines of its UBD-M9500 was in the works, the report says, but has now been scrapped." From the report: One of the reasons for pulling out could be that the existing players' format support has lagged behind the rest of the industry. For example, instead of supporting Dolby Vision, Samsung created its own version of HDR10, HDR10+, which was designed for use in streaming and physical media. Competitor Oppo was the first company to support both HDR10 and Dolby Vision but announced it was ending production of its 4K Blu-ray players in April 2018. Meanwhile Sony announced the M2 player at CES 2019 with support for Dolby Vision and Panasonic recently released the high-end DP-UB9000 player in Europe and Australia.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: The tipping controversy that prompted Instacart to reverse a compensation plan to its contract workers isn't likely to go away: Rivals DoorDash and Amazon Flex are continuing to adjust driver pay based on how much they get tipped, saying doing so ensures a minimum payout. The practice, which has its roots in the way brick-and-mortar restaurants pay waitstaff, has been adapted to suit the needs of app-based delivery companies. The difference is that gig-economy workers are independent contractors, and so aren't protected by the minimum wage laws. Instacart, a $7.6 billion grocery delivery company, made a change in October 2018 that workers would receive at least $10 per delivery order. Customers and shoppers didn't realize that the tips were counting towards that minimum instead of being a bonus on top. So if someone tipped more, Instacart effectively had to pay less. That's how one Instacart delivery driver ended up with Instacart only paying 80 cents and the rest of the minimum being met with tips.

The company reversed its decision on Wednesday after public outcry, admitting that counting tips in its payout totals was "misguided" and has moved to a new pay scale that doesn't factor in tips at all. But DoorDash and Amazon Flex, the contract workforce that delivers packages for Prime Now, continued to stand their ground. DoorDash claims it has been transparent about the tips being part of its delivery driver pay since it made the change in 2017, including on a blog post on whether customers should tip, and maintains that delivery-driver retention and overall satisfaction both "increased significantly" since the change. Both DoorDash and Instacart insist that they never turned the payment dial down if someone received a large tip. Instead, both companies used an algorithm to calculate a base pay rate that would include things like time and effort it took to deliver. If that base pay plus tip fell short of the price they guaranteed, then both companies would pay out more to make sure its delivery drivers reached the payout they had been promised. But in cases where the tip plus its initial calculation reached the promised payout, then the companies would only contribute the amount that the algorithm had calculated the delivery person deserved. One simple solution if you want to make sure your tip gets into the hand of your digital delivery worker: tip in cash.

An anonymous reader quotes Forbes: A massive majority of consumers believe that using their data to personalize ads is unethical. And a further 76% believe that personalization to create tailored newsfeeds -- precisely what Facebook, Twitter, and other social applications do every day -- is unethical.

At least, that's what they say on surveys.

RSA surveyed 6,000 adults in Europe and America to evaluate how our attitudes are changing towards data, privacy, and personalization. The results don't look good for surveillance capitalism, or for the free services we rely on every day for social networking, news, and information-finding. "Less than half (48 percent) of consumers believe there are ethical ways companies can use their data," RSA, a fraud prevention and security company, said when releasing the survey results. Oh, and when a compan y gets hacked? Consumers blame the company, not the hacker, the report says.

From a report: While our ears may be attuned to lossy compressed audio in most everyday scenarios, the experience of rediscovering high-fidelity lossless digital audio can be nothing short of a revelation. Fine details reappear, performers have more space, sounds have more definition, audio feels warmer, sounds clearer, and is noticeably more pleasurable to listen to. The higher you go with audio file resolution, the better it gets. Thanks to the new range of streaming apps delivering CD-quality or higher, our beloved "universal jukebox" is undergoing a significant upgrade.

Consumer demand for high-resolution audio has been growing steadily, for example users of Deezer HiFi have increased by 71% in the past 12 months alone, and the product is now available in 180 countries and works with a wide range of FLAC streaming compatible devices. Bang & Olufsen's most senior Tonmeister (sound engineer) Geoff Marti believes that demand for hi-fi streaming audio is growing due to a rise in the number of people buying high-end audio devices. "It used to be that you bought an iPhone and you used the white earbuds, but nowadays people are upgrading to better headphones, so they want a better file and a better app to play it on. The potential is there for somebody that wants to get high quality, and they don't have to spend a lot of money to get it."

"California's largest power company intends to file for bankruptcy as it faces tens of billions of dollars in potential liability following massive wildfires that devastated parts of the state over the last two years," reports the Washington Post.

Calling it "a climate change casualty," one Forbes contributor notes that PG&E's stock has now lost 90% of its mid-October value after a giant November wildfire, adding that "Future investors will look back on these three months as a turning point, and wonder why the effects of climate change on the economic underpinnings to our society were not more widely recognized at the time." Climate scientists may equivocate about the degree to which Global Warming is contributing to these fires until more detailed research is complete, but for an investor who is used to making decisions based on incomplete or ambiguous information, the warning signs are flashing red... there is no doubt in my mind that Global Warming's thumb rests on the scale of PG&E's decision to declare bankruptcy.
And the Wall Street Journal is already describing it as "the first climate-change bankruptcy, probably not the last," noting that it was a prolonged drought that "dried out much of the state and decimated forests, dramatically increasing the risk of fire." "This is a fairly new development," said Bruce Usher, a professor at Columbia University's business school who teaches a course on climate and finance. "If you are not already considering extreme weather and other climatic events as one of many risk factors affecting business today, you are not doing your job"...

In less than a decade, PG&E, which serves 16 million customers, saw the risk of catastrophic wildfires multiply greatly in its vast service area, which stretches from the Oregon border south to Bakersfield. Weather patterns that had been typical for Southern California -- such as the hot, dry Santa Ana winds that sweep across the region in autumn, stoking fires -- were now appearing hundreds of miles to the north. "The Santa Ana fire condition is now a Northern California fire reality, " said Ken Pimlott, who retired last month as director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. "In a perfect world, we would like to see all [of PG&E's] equipment upgraded, all of the vegetation removed from their lines. But I don't know anybody overnight who is going to catch up." PG&E scrambled to reduce fire risks by shoring up power lines and trimming millions of trees. But the company's equipment kept setting fires -- about 1,550 between mid-2014 through 2017, or more than one a day, according to data it filed with the state.

The global business community is recognizing the risks it faces from climate change. This week, a World Economic Forum survey of global business and thought leaders found extreme weather and other climate-related issues as top risks both by likelihood and impact.
Other factors besides climate change may also have pushed PG&E towards bankruptcy, according to the article. They're required by California state regulations to provide electrical service to the thousands of people moving into the state's forested areas, yet "an unusual California state law, known as 'inverse condemnation,' made PG&E liable if its equipment started a fire, regardless of whether it was negligent."

In declaring bankruptcy, PG&E cited an estimated $30 billion in liabilities -- plus 750 lawsuits from wildfires potentially caused by its power lines.

A California judge has ruled that American cops can't force people to unlock a mobile phone with their face or finger. The ruling goes further to protect people's private lives from government searches than any before and is being hailed as a potentially landmark decision. From a report: Previously, U.S. judges had ruled that police were allowed to force unlock devices like Apple's iPhone with biometrics, such as fingerprints, faces or irises. That was despite the fact feds weren't permitted to force a suspect to divulge a passcode. But according to a ruling uncovered by Forbes, all logins are equal. The order came from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in the denial of a search warrant for an unspecified property in Oakland. The warrant was filed as part of an investigation into a Facebook extortion crime, in which a victim was asked to pay up or have an "embarassing" video of them publicly released. The cops had some suspects in mind and wanted to raid their property. In doing so, the feds also wanted to open up any phone on the premises via facial recognition, a fingerprint or an iris.

Four months after a mysterious group was outed for a digital espionage operation that used novel techniques to target Mac users, its macOS malware samples continued to go undetected by most antivirus providers, a security researcher reported on Thursday. Ars Technica reports: Windshift is what researchers refer to as an APT -- short for "advanced persistent threat" -- that surveils individuals in the Middle East. The group operated in the shadows for two years until August, when Taha Karim, a researcher at security firm DarkMatter, profiled it at the Hack in the Box conference in Singapore. Slides, a brief description, and a report from Forbes are here, here and here, respectively.

On Thursday, Mac security expert Patrick Wardle published an analysis of Meeting_Agenda.zip, a file Karim had said installed the rare Mac malware. To Wardle's surprise, results from VirusTotal at the time showed that only two antivirus providers -- Kaspersky and ZoneAlarm -- detected the file as malicious. Wardle then used a feature that searched VirusTotal for related malicious files and found four more. Three of them weren't detected by any AV providers, while one was detected by only two providers. The reason the findings were so surprising is that Apple had already revoked the cryptographic certificate the developers used to digitally sign their malware. That meant Apple knew of the malware. In fairness, the control servers the malware contacts are no longer available on the Internet. That means any infected computers aren't in danger of being surveilled. Also in fairness, the number of detections has slowly risen in the day since Wardle published his analysis.

An anonymous reader writes: A new variant of the Shamoon malware was discovered on the network of an Italian and UAE oil and gas company. While the damage at the UAE firm is currently unknown, the malware has been confirmed to have destroyed files on about ten percent of the Italian company's PC fleet. Shamoon is one of the most dangerous strains of malware known to date. It was first deployed in two separate incidents that targeted the infrastructure of Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia's largest oil producer, in 2012 and 2016. During those incidents, the malware wiped files and replaced them with propaganda images (burning U.S. flag and body of Alan Kurdi). The 2012 attack was devastating in particular, with Shamoon wiping data on over 30,000 computers, crippling the company's activity for weeks. Historically, the malware has been tied to the Iranian regime, but it's unclear if Iranian hackers were behind these latest attacks. This new Shamoon version was revealed to the world when an Italian engineer uploaded the malware on VirusTotal, triggering detections at all major cyber-security firms across the globe.

An anonymous reader writes: A new variant of the Shamoon malware was discovered on the network of an Italian and UAE oil and gas companies. While the damage at the UAE firm is currently unknown, the malware has been confirmed to have destroyed files on about ten percent of the Italian company's PC fleet.

Shamoon is one of the most dangerous strains of malware known to date. It was first deployed in two separate incidents that targeted the infrastructure of Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia's largest oil producer, in 2012 and 2016. During those incidents, the malware wiped files and replaced them with propaganda images (burning US flag, body of Alan Kurdi). The 2012 attack was devastating in particular, with Shamoon wiping data on over 30,000 computers, crippling the company's activity for weeks. Historically, the malware has been tied to the Iranian regime, but it's unclear if Iranian hackers were behind this latest attacks. This new Shamoon version was revealed to the world when an Italian engineer uploaded the malware on VirusTotal, triggering detections at all major cyber-security firms across the globe.

Forbes magazine tested four of the most popular handsets running Google's operating systems and Apple's iPhone to see how easy it'd be to break into them with a 3D-printed head. All of the Android handsets opened with the fake. Apple's phone, however, was impenetrable. From the report: For our tests, we used my own real-life head to register for facial recognition across five phones. An iPhone X and four Android devices: an LG G7 Linq, a Samsung S9, a Samsung Note 8 and a OnePlus 6. I then held up my fake head to the devices to see if the device would unlock. For all four Android phones, the spoof face was able to open the phone, though with differing degrees of ease. The iPhone X was the only one to never be fooled.

There were some disparities between the Android devices' security against the hack. For instance, when first turning on a brand new G7 Linq, LG actually warns the user against turning facial recognition on at all. No surprise then that, on initial testing, the 3D-printed head opened it straightaway. [...] The OnePlus 6 came with neither the warnings of the other Android phones nor the choice of slower but more secure recognition.

"Strange waves rippled across earth and only one person spotted them," reported Forbes, noting that the seismologist then "quickly put out an alert to see if other systems detected the same unusual wave."

"Seismographs picked up the waves as they traveled as far as New Zealand, Chile, Hawaii and Canada. In total, the waves were detected as far as 11,000 miles from their origin, ringing for 20 minutes or more minutes as they passed... As these waves rippled across the globe there were surprisingly no reports of anyone feeling the rumbling."

The Weather Channel now reports that "There was no earthquake large enough to have started these low-frequency signals. Scientists believed a magma shift caused the rumblings," citing a recent interview with Stephen Hicks, a seismologist at the University of Southampton. The Guardian reports: Hicks believes magma may suddenly have drained from a volcanic chamber about 10 miles under the seafloor near Mayotte, setting off the deep rumble that spread around the world. While strong enough to be picked up by sensitive seismometers, the vibrations would have been minuscule: far smaller than a millimetre. "It's something that you wouldn't perceive," he said. Pierre Briole, a geoscientist at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, has reached a similar conclusion. He believes that a third of a cubic mile of magma may have drained from a volcanic chamber under the seafloor, unleashing deep vibrations when its roof collapsed.

Much of the seismic sleuthing played out on social media with professional and amateur scientists working together. "Overall, [it has been] a fascinating demonstration of open science on Twitter and engagement between scientists and citizen seismologists," said Hicks.

Cryptocurrency prices "fell sharply on Friday, as another bout of selling took digital currencies to fresh lows," reports MarketWatch, adding that Friday the price of Bitcoin "crashed through support at $3,500, falling more than 10% to a 15-month low at $3,230 on the Kraken exchange."

"What a difference a year makes," CNN Business quipped Friday, in an article headlined "Bitcoin's Epic Plunge Continues": In December 2017, bitcoin prices hit a record high of just under $20,000... Bitcoin is at a 15-month low. But prices have really gotten whacked this week, falling nearly 20% in just the past five days alone. Bitcoin isn't the only cryptocurrency getting hit either. Ripple/XRP, ethereum, stellar, litecoin and numerous other cryptocurrencies have plunged in the past week.

Little tangible news can explain or justify the current crypto carnage. One possible reason is that a pro-crypto member of the Securities and Exchange Commission warned at a conference this week that she's fighting an uphill battle trying to convince the rest of the SEC to approve more bitcoin exchange traded funds.... Nearly two-thirds of money managers surveyed by asset management firm Natixis still thought that cryptocurrencies were a bubble, the firm reported this week.
"In my opinion, bitcoin is dead," wrote the CEO of one wealth management firm with more than $32 billion in assets. It won't go quietly, but the recent precipitous drop may be the beginning of its inevitable and inexorable death spiral. Or there could be a dead cat bounce. Either way, I see bitcoin as a dead man walking. Future generations may read about bitcoin in a finance textbook as a curiosity and wonder what all the fuss was about. There are still some die-hard adherents espousing the virtues of bitcoin, desperate to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Unfortunately for them, the end may not be pretty when it comes.

Proponents of bitcoin tend to focus on the impact of the blockchain technology that drives it, and make no mistake, blockchain is the real deal. Blockchain is fundamentally changing the way industries do business, from traditional banking to supply chain management. But just because blockchain technology is creating a new paradigm doesn't mean that bitcoin shares that same distinction.... Most cryptocurrency transactions are purely speculative. There are no real fundamentals to evaluate; bitcoin doesn't produce any products or services, hire any employees or pay any dividends. The only way profits are generated is when the owner is lucky enough to find someone else who will pay more for the thing...

The minute bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency appears to have even the slightest chance of disrupting national monetary supply, I expect regulation to be swift and decisive. The SEC has already issued guidance around cryptocurrencies that has created roadblocks to gaining the same legitimacy as traditional marketable securities... If you enjoy the thrill of making bets, I suggest you visit your favorite sports book or table game in Vegas where your odds of success are much higher.

An anonymous reader writes: Forbes magazine has an in-depth piece on Joe Liemandt. As you may be aware, Liemandt was the founder of Trilogy, a startup which has been credited to help put Austin on the tech map. He is also founder of ESW Capital, a private equity firm that is scooping up software startups left and right. Forbes called him "one of the most mysterious and innovative figures in technology."

But the story explores the approach Liemandt and his team took to acquire enterprise software companies, install new leadership, lay off staff and hire significantly cheaper tech labor abroad. And the numbers are compelling -- $15 an hour C++ programmers. Those are Amazon warehouse wages -- and those $15 programming gigs don't come with much for benefits. Plus, they require you to install software to your computer that tracks surfing, keystrokes and even takes screen grabs and photos via your computer's camera -- and this is typically on a gig worker's personal computer, not an employers' machine. The story opens with this: From an office suite on the 26th floor of the iconic Frost Bank Tower in Austin, Texas, a little-known recruiting firm called Crossover is searching the globe for software engineers. Crossover is looking for anyone who can commit to a 40- or 50-hour workweek, but it has no interest in full-time employees. It wants contract workers who are willing to toil from their homes or even in local cafes. "The best people in the world aren't in your Zip code," says Andy Tryba, chief executive of Crossover, in a promotional YouTube video. Which, Tryba emphasizes, also means you don't have to pay them like they are your neighbors. "The world is going to a cloud wage."

Tryba's video has 61,717 views, but he is no random YouTube proselytizer. He worked in sales at Intel for 14 years before serving in the White House as an advisor to President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Since 2014, Tryba has been the right-hand man of Joe Liemandt, one of the most mysterious and innovative figures in technology. In the 1990s Liemandt was the golden boy of enterprise software, a 30 Under 30 wunderkind before there was a Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Like Bill Gates before him, he dropped out of college, in his case Stanford, to start a company, Trilogy, and build his fortune. In 1996, at the age of 27, he made the cover of Forbes, and a few months later he appeared as the youngest self-made member of The Forbes 400, with a $500 million net worth.

An anonymous reader writes: Forbes magazine has an in-depth piece on Joe Liemandt. As you may be aware, Liemandt was the founder of Trilogy, a startup which has been credited to help put Austin on the tech map. He is also founder of ESW Capital, a private equity firm that is scooping up software startups left and right. Forbes called him "one of the most mysterious and innovative figures in technology."

But the story explores the approach Liemandt and his team took to acquire enterprise software companies, install new leadership, lay off staff and hire significantly cheaper tech labor abroad. And the numbers are compelling -- $15 an hour C++ programmers. Those are Amazon warehouse wages -- and those $15 programming gigs don't come with much for benefits. Plus, they require you to install software to your computer that tracks surfing, keystrokes and even takes screen grabs and photos via your computer's camera -- and this is typically on a gig worker's personal computer, not an employers' machine. The story opens with this: From an office suite on the 26th floor of the iconic Frost Bank Tower in Austin, Texas, a little-known recruiting firm called Crossover is searching the globe for software engineers. Crossover is looking for anyone who can commit to a 40- or 50-hour workweek, but it has no interest in full-time employees. It wants contract workers who are willing to toil from their homes or even in local cafes. "The best people in the world aren't in your Zip code," says Andy Tryba, chief executive of Crossover, in a promotional YouTube video. Which, Tryba emphasizes, also means you don't have to pay them like they are your neighbors. "The world is going to a cloud wage."

Tryba's video has 61,717 views, but he is no random YouTube proselytizer. He worked in sales at Intel for 14 years before serving in the White House as an advisor to President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Since 2014, Tryba has been the right-hand man of Joe Liemandt, one of the most mysterious and innovative figures in technology. In the 1990s Liemandt was the golden boy of enterprise software, a 30 Under 30 wunderkind before there was a Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Like Bill Gates before him, he dropped out of college, in his case Stanford, to start a company, Trilogy, and build his fortune. In 1996, at the age of 27, he made the cover of Forbes, and a few months later he appeared as the youngest self-made member of The Forbes 400, with a $500 million net worth.

Be careful what you're downloading from Google Play. Especially if it's one of 13 apps posing as driving games created by one developer called Luiz Pinto. From a report: More than 560,000 have already been tricked into downloading the games, which include a mix of luxury car and truck simulation apps, as discovered by Android malware researcher Lukas Stefanko. Once installed on a user's Android device, the games don't actually work. Looking at the reviews on Google Play, users who downloaded them complained it was a virus. For instance, among the masses of one-star reviews for the Truck Cargo Simulator, one noted his device slowed down after it forced him to download an app that wasn't the game itself. Many simply called it a scam.

Smartphone data from riders and drivers schlepping meals for restaurant-to-home courier service Deliveroo shows that bicycles are faster than cars and motorized two-wheelers. From a news writeup, which sources its data from Deliveroo, a UK-headquartered food delivery company with more than 30,000 riders and drivers in 13 countries: That bicyclists are faster in cities will come as no surprise to bicycle advocates who have staged so-called "commuter races" for many years. However, these races -- organized to highlight the swiftness of urban cycling -- are usually staged in locations and at hours skewed towards bicycle riders. The Deliveroo stats are significant because they have been extracted from millions of actual journeys. And it's all thanks to Frank.

Frank is the name Deliveroo gives its routing algorithm (the name was chosen for the Danny DeVito character in the TV series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.") Delivering millions of simultaneous orders from thousands of restaurants to hungry consumers within 30 minutes using roving self-employed couriers equipped with smartphones is a complex vehicle routing problem: consumers want piping hot food; restaurants want meals picked up when cooked; riders -- paid per drop -- want multiple deliveries per hour, and Deliveroo needs to make money. The algorithm team employs data scientists with PhDs in computer vision, computer science, operations research, cognitive neuroscience, econometrics, machine learning, and physics.

Apple's newest version of iOS has rendered the GrayKey hacking tech useless, a report said Wednesday. How Apple pulled it off wasn't immediately clear, but it would have a huge implication for the law enforcement agencies around the world that have relied on GrayKey to break into locked iPhones. Forbes reports: Apple has put up what may be an insurmountable wall. Multiple sources familiar with the GrayKey tech tell Forbes the device can no longer break the passcodes of any iPhone running iOS 12 or above. On those devices, GrayKey can only do what's called a "partial extraction," sources from the forensic community said. That means police using the tool can only draw out unencrypted files and some metadata, such as file sizes and folder structures.

Previously, GrayKey used "brute forcing" techniques to guess passcodes and had found a way to get around Apple's protections preventing such repeat guesses. But no more. And if it's impossible for GrayKey, which counts an ex-Apple security engineer among its founders, it's a safe assumption few can break iPhone passcodes. Police officer Captain John Sherwin of the Rochester Police Department in Minnesota said of the claim iOS 12 was preventing GrayKey from unlocking iPhones: "That's a fairly accurate assessment as to what we have experienced."

An anonymous reader quotes Forbes: Rockstar Games co-founder and VP Dan Hauser unleashed a storm of controversy when he casually stated in an interview with Vulture that "We were working 100-hour weeks" putting the finishing touches on Red Dead Redemption 2. Reaction was swift with many condemning the ubiquitous practice of crunch time in the video game industry in general and Rockstar's history of imposing harsh demands on its employees in particular... Hauser responded that he was talking about a senior writing team of four people working over a three-week period. This kind of intense short-term engagement was common for the team which had been working together for 12 years. Hauser went on to say that Rockstar doesn't "ask or expect anyone to work anything like this". Employees are given the option of working excessive overtime but doing so is a "choice" not a requirement.

A QA tester at Rockstar's Lincoln studio in the UK has taken to Reddit to answer questions and clarify misconceptions about overtime at Rockstar that have arisen in the wake of Hauser's comments.... He has no knowledge of working conditions at other Rockstar studios. The first thing the poster points out is that he and other QA testers (with the possible exception of salaried staff) are paid for their overtime work. He then writes "The other big thing is that this overtime is NOT optional, it is expected of us. If we are not able to work overtime on a certain day without a good reason, you have to make it up on another day. This usually means that if you want a full weekend off that you will have to work a double weekend to make up for it... We have been in crunch since October 9th 2017 which is before I started working here...."

[A] requirement to opt into weekly overtime shifts and more than a year of required crunch time ranging from 56 to 81.5 hours spent at work each week is a far, far cry from Hauser's claim that overtime is a "choice" offered to Rockstar's employees. The good news is that Rockstar has changed its overtime policies in response to the negative press engendered by Hauser's 100-hours comment [according to the verified Rock Star employed on Reddit]. Beginning next week "all overtime going forward will be entirely optional, so if we want to work the extra hours and earn the extra money (As well as make yourself look better for progression) then we can do, but there is no longer a rule making us do it."
The videogame correspondent for Forbes argues that this "crunch time is the norm" idea in the videogame industry "is unconscionable and untenable. No one, in any line of work, should be expected to sacrifice their family for their job. If people want to devote their life to their job, they should be able to do so but those who would rather work a standard work-week should also be able to do so without suffering adverse job-related consequences." But what do Slashdot's readers think?

Should 'crunch' overtime be optional?

CNBC is reporting that Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen has died from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Vulcan Inc. said in a statement Monday that Allen passed this afternoon in Seattle at the age of 65. From the report: "While most knew Paul Allen as a technologist and philanthropist, for us he was a much-loved brother and uncle, and an exceptional friend. Paul's family and friends were blessed to experience his wit, warmth, his generosity and deep concern," [Paul Allen's sister, Jody Allen] said in a statement. "For all the demands on his schedule, there was always time for family and friends. At this time of loss and grief for us -- and so many others -- we are profoundly grateful for the care and concern he demonstrated every day."

Earlier this month, Allen revealed that he had started treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the same type of cancer he overcame nine years earlier. The longtime CEO left Microsoft when he was first diagnosed with the disease. Allen also ranked among the world's wealthiest individuals. As of Monday afternoon, he ranked 21st on Forbes' list of billionaires with an estimated net worth of $20.3 billion. UPDATE: Added a link to a statement from Vulcan Inc. on behalf of the Allen Family and Paul G. Allen network.

In what may be a world first, the FBI has forced a suspect to unlock his iPhone X using Apple's Face ID feature. From a report: Agents in Columbus, Ohio entered the home of 28-year-old Grant Michalski, who was suspected of child abuse, according to court documents spotted by Forbes. With a search warrant in hand, they forced him to put his face on front of the device to unlock it. They were then able to freely search for his photos, chats and any other potential evidence. The FBI started investigating Michalski after discovering his ad on Craigslist titled "taboo." Later, they discovered emails in which he discussed incest and sex with minors with another defendant, William Weekly.

Brian Acton, a founder of WhatsApp, which he (along with the other founder) sold to Facebook for $19 billion four years ago, has grown tired of the social juggernaut. He left the company a year ago, and earlier this year, he surprised many when he tweeted "#DeleteFacebook", offering his support to what many described as a movement. He had started despising working at Facebook so much, that he left the company abruptly, leaving a cool $850M in unvested stock. He has also invested $50 million in encrypted chat app Signal. In an interview with Forbes, published Wednesday, Acton talked about his rationale behind leaving the company and what he thinks of Facebook now. From the story: Under pressure from Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg to monetize WhatsApp, he pushed back as Facebook questioned the encryption he'd helped build and laid the groundwork to show targeted ads and facilitate commercial messaging. Acton also walked away from Facebook a year before his final tranche of stock grants vested. "It was like, okay, well, you want to do these things I don't want to do," Acton says. "It's better if I get out of your way. And I did." It was perhaps the most expensive moral stand in history. Acton took a screenshot of the stock price on his way out the door -- the decision cost him $850 million.

He's following a similar moral code now. He clearly doesn't relish the spotlight this story will bring and is quick to underscore that Facebook "isn't the bad guy." ("I think of them as just very good businesspeople.") But he paid dearly for the right to speak his mind. "As part of a proposed settlement at the end, [Facebook management] tried to put a nondisclosure agreement in place," Acton says. "That was part of the reason that I got sort of cold feet in terms of trying to settle with these guys."

It's also a story any idealistic entrepreneur can identify with: What happens when you build something incredible and then sell it to someone with far different plans for your baby? "At the end of the day, I sold my company," Acton says. "I sold my users' privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. And I live with that every day."

Facebook, Acton says, had decided to pursue two ways of making money from WhatsApp. First, by showing targeted ads in WhatsApp's new Status feature, which Acton felt broke a social compact with its users. "Targeted advertising is what makes me unhappy," he says. His motto at WhatsApp had been "No ads, no games, no gimmicks" -- a direct contrast with a parent company that derived 98% of its revenue from advertising. Another motto had been "Take the time to get it right," a stark contrast to "Move fast and break things." Elsewhere in the story, Acton has also suggested he was used by Facebook to help get its 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp past EU regulators that had been concerned it might be able to link accounts -- as it subsequently did.

Update: Facebook Executive Hits Back at WhatsApp Co-founder Brian Acton: 'A Whole New Standard of Low-Class'.

Last July, in Google's Sunnyvale offices, a hacker found a way to trick doors into opening without the requisite RFID keycard, Forbes reported Monday. Luckily for Google, it was David Tomaschik, an employee at the tech giant, who only had good intentions. From the report: When he sent his malicious code across the Google network, he saw the lights turn from red to green on the door to his office. Then came the satisfying thunk as the lock opened. It was the culmination of work in which Tomaschik had uncovered vulnerabilities in technology made by Software House, the creator of the office controllers managing the physical security of the California site.

Last summer, when Tomaschik looked at the encrypted messages the Software House devices (called iStar Ultra and IP-ACM) were sending across the Google network, he discovered they were non-random; encrypted messages should always look random if they're properly protected. He was intrigued and digging deeper discovered a "hardcoded" encryption key was used by all Software House devices. That meant he could effectively replicate the key and forge commands, such as those asking a door to unlock. Or he could simply replay legitimate unlocking commands, which had much the same effect. Tomaschik also discovered he could do all this without any record of his actions. And he could prevent legitimate Google employees from opening doors. "Once I had my findings it became a priority. It was pretty bad," he told Forbes. Google then moved quickly to prevent attacks on its offices, according to Tomaschik.

Will Townsend, a senior analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy research firm, writes: As it relates to networking, the Linux Foundation is currently focused on a number of projects that are bringing top networking vendors, operators, service providers, and users together. Among the top initiatives are the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) and Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK). In this article, I would like to dive into both of these initiatives and share my perspective on how each is transforming the nature of networking [Editor's note: the website may have auto-playing videos; an alternative link was not available].

It makes sense that ONAP's releases are named after global cities, considering the platform's growing global footprint. ONAP is aimed at bringing real-time automation and orchestration to both physical and virtualized network functions. The first release in the fall of 2017, named Amsterdam, delivered a unified architecture for providing closed-loop networking automation. The underlying framework ensured a level of modularity to facilitate future functionality as well as standards harmonization and critical upstream partner collaboration. Initial use cases centered on Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) services as well as Virtualized Consumer Premise Equipment (vCPE). Both are extremely cost disruptive from a deployment and management perspective and deliver enhanced service provider agility. What I find extremely compelling is that Amsterdam was only an eight-month development cycle from start to release. That's an amazing feat even in the fast-paced technology industry.

[...] DPDK was an effort initially led by Intel at its inception nearly eight years ago, but became a part of the Linux Foundation back in 2017. At a high level, the technology accelerates packet processing workloads running on a variety of CPU architectures. DPDK is aimed at improving overall network performance, delivering enhanced encryption for improved security and optimizing lower latency applications that require lightning-fast response time. The transformative power of 5G networks lies in their potential to deliver low latency for applications such as augmented/virtual reality and self-driving cars -- DPDK will further extend that performance for next-generation wireless wide area networks. I had the opportunity recently to speak to project chair Jim St. Leger after the fifth DPDK release, and I was impressed with the depth and breadth of the open source project. Over 25 companies and 160 technologists are involved in advancing the effort. With the proliferation of data, cord cutting at home, and growing consumption of video over wired and wireless networks, high-quality compression techniques will dramatically improve performance and reliability. DPDK appears to be poised to contribute significantly to that effort.

Back in March, as it investigated a spate of armed robberies across Portland, Maine, the FBI made an astonishing, unprecedented request of Google, Forbes reports. The feds wanted the tech giant to find all users of its services who'd been within the vicinity of at least two of nine of those robberies. They limited the search to within 30-minute timeframes around when the crimes were committed. But the request covered a total space of 45 hectares and could've included anyone with an Android or iPhone using Google's tools, not just the suspect. From a report: The FBI then demanded a lot of personal information on affected users, including their full names and addresses, as well as their Google account activity. The feds also wanted all affected users' historical locations. According to court records, while Google didn't provide the information, the cops still found their suspect in the end. Outside of concerns around government overreach, the FBI's remarkable attempt to force Google to assist in its investigation will likely worry all who were disturbed by an Associated Press investigation published on Monday that claimed Google continued to track people even when they turned location features off. The court warrants unearthed by Forbes indicate some at the FBI believe they have a right to that location data too, even if it belongs to innocents who might be unwittingly caught up in invasive government surveillance. And the government feels such fishing expeditions are permissable; it issued the warrant on Google without knowing whether or not the suspect used an Android device or any of the company services at all.

WindBourne shares a report from Forbes: In the second quarter of 2018, Tesla produced just over 53,000 vehicles, doubling its output compared to the same quarter last year. For the first time, Model 3 production (28,578) exceeded combined Model S and X production (24,761) with deliveries to customers totaling 40,740 for the quarter. The ramp up in Model 3 production is enabling it to outsell small and midsize luxury car sales in the U.S., according to some number crunching by CleanTechnica's Zachary Shahan.

His analysis claims that the Model 3 is crushing its "competitors" in that segment with total estimated sales for July amounting to 16,000 vehicles. The closest individual model to Tesla's mass-market endeavor is the Mercedes C-Class and even then, its July sales are estimated at just 6,029 units. The Model 3 is still untouchable when sales figures from multiple vehicles produced by the same company are added together. For example, the analysis expects sales of the BMW 2, 3, 4 and 5 Series to hit 12,811 at the end of July in total while customers will get their hands on 11,835 Mercedes C, CLA, CLS and E-Class models. That all means that Tesla would have a 23% share of the small and midsize luxury car market in July, ahead of BMW's 17% and Mercedes' 17%.

Long-time Slashdot reader reifman writes: If you're eagerly awaiting your city's selection for HQ2, you may want to check out GeekWire's photo gallery of anti-Amazon graffiti images from around Seattle. Animosity towards Amazon has grown in the wake of its threats over a per head tax on employees, which the city council passed and then repealed shortly after. The tax would have increased the budget for services for our 12,000+ homeless. Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos also fought the state income tax on the wealthy in 2010.

He Who Has No Name writes: Those who remember Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed -- the self-described cryptoanarchist and his organization that published plans for 3D printable firearm parts, respectively -- also remember that not long after the plans for the printable Liberator single-shot pistol hit the web, the Department of State seized the Defense Distributed website and prohibited Wilson from publishing 3D printable firearm plans, claiming violations of ITAR -- the International Traffic in Arms Regulation, a U.S. law taxing and restricting the distribution of a wide variety of physical goods listed as having military value. Slashdot covered the website seizure here (the Department of Defense was initially misreported in sources to have been the agency responsible).

In both a First and Second Amendment win, the Second Amendment Foundation has settled with the Department of State after suing on behalf of Defense Distributed. Slashdot reader schwit1 shares an excerpt from the report: "Under terms of the settlement, the government has agreed to waive its prior restraint against the plaintiffs, allowing them to freely publish the 3-D files and other information at issue. The government has also agreed to pay a significant portion of the plaintiffs' attorney's fees, and to return $10,000 in State Department registration dues paid by Defense Distributed as a result of the prior restraint. Significantly, the government expressly acknowledges that non-automatic firearms up to .50-caliber -- including modern semi-auto sporting rifles such as the popular AR-15 and similar firearms -- are not inherently military."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Probing the bowels of what he believed to be North Korean hacking architecture, American cybersecurity researcher Darien Huss found an outlier: iPhone software. It appeared at first glance to be a fairly mundane program, a mobile device management (MDM) tool. Such apps are typically used for businesses to remotely monitor and control employees' phones. But, according to Huss, it's most likely one of, if not the only, example of North Korean spyware for Apple's smartphone.

It's unlikely the MDM app was anything other than malicious, said Huss, an employee of cybersecurity company Proofpoint. Tellingly, it was located on a server believed to contain other hacking tools, in particular those for Microsoft Windows, that he'd linked to one of the bigger North Korean hacking groups, the researcher explained to Forbes. If the iPhone tool is indeed a piece of spyware, Huss hasn't seen it used yet. He believes it's currently in development by that North Korean-linked hacker crew, though Proofpoint declined to provide additional details on his research.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: Nvidia may not be talking about its GeForce Partner Program, but AMD has gone from silent to proactive in less than 24 hours. Hours ago Scott Herkelman, Corporate VP and General Manager of AMD Radeon Gaming, addressed AMD resellers via Twitter, not only acknowledging the anti-competitive tactics Nvidia has leveraged against them, but inviting others to share their stories. The series of tweets coincides with an AMD sales event held in London this week. This was preceded by an impassioned blog post from Herkelman yesterday where he comes out swinging against Nvidia's GeForce Partner Program, and references other closed, proprietary technologies like G-Sync and GameWorks.

AMD's new mantra is "Freedom of Choice," a tagline clearly chosen to combat Nvidia's new program which is slowly taking gaming GPU brands from companies like MSI and Gigabyte, and locking them exclusively under the GeForce banner. The GeForce Partner Program also seems to threaten the business of board partners who are are not aligned with the program. Here's what Herkelman -- who was a former GeForce marketing executive at Nvidia -- had to say on Twitter: "I wanted to personally thank all of our resellers who are attending our AMD sales event in London this week, it was a pleasure catching up with you and thank you for your support. Many of you told me how our competition tries to use funding and allocation to restrict or block [...] your ability to market and sell Radeon based products in the manner you and your customers desire. I want to let you know that your voices have been heard and that I welcome any others who have encountered similar experiences to reach out to me..." The report adds that Kyle Bennett of HardOCP, the author who broke the original GPP story, "says that Nvidia is beginning a disinformation campaign against him, claiming that he was paid handsomely for publishing the story."

An anonymous reader shares a report: In November 2016, around seven hours after Abdul Razak Ali Artan had mowed down a group of people in his car, gone on a stabbing spree with a butcher's knife and been shot dead by a police officer on the grounds of Ohio State University, an FBI agent applied the bloodied body's index finger to the iPhone found on the deceased. The cops hoped it would help them access the Apple device to learn more about the assailant's motives and Artan himself.

This is according to FBI forensics specialist Bob Moledor, who detailed for Forbes the first known case of police using a deceased person's fingerprints in an attempt to get past the protections of Apple's Touch ID technology. Unfortunately for the FBI, Artan's lifeless fingerprint didn't unlock the device. In the hours between his death and the attempt to unlock, when the feds had to go through legal processes regarding access to the smartphone, the iPhone had gone to sleep and when reopened required a passcode, Moledor said. He sent the device to a forensics lab which managed to retrieve information from the iPhone, the FBI phone expert and a Columbus officer who worked the case confirmed. That data helped the authorities determine that Artan's failed attempt to murder innocents may have been a result of ISIS-inspired radicalization.

Where Moledor's attempt failed, others have succeeded. Separate sources close to local and federal police investigations in New York and Ohio, who asked to remain anonymous as they weren't authorized to speak on record, said it was now relatively common for fingerprints of the deceased to be depressed on the scanner of Apple iPhones, devices which have been wrapped up in increasingly powerful encryption over recent years. For instance, the technique has been used in overdose cases, said one source. In such instances, the victim's phone could contain information leading directly to the dealer.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Grayshift, a company that offers to unlock modern iPhones for as little as $50 each, has caused a buzz across law enforcement agencies, with local police already putting down cash for the much sought-after tech. Now, it appears a section of the U.S. State Department has also purchased the iPhone cracking tool, judging by procurement records reviewed by Motherboard. Grayshift's iPhone product, dubbed GrayKey, can unlock devices running versions of Apple's latest mobile operating system iOS 11, according to marketing material obtained by Forbes. An online version of GrayKey which allows 300 unlocks costs $15,000 (which boils down to $50 per device), and an offline capability with unlimited uses is $30,000. According to a recent post from cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, which obtained leaked details on GrayKey, the product itself is a small, four inch by four inch box, and two iPhones can be connected at once via lightning cables. Malwarebytes adds that the time it takes to unlock a device varies depending on the strength of the user's passcode: it may be hours or days. Notably, Grayshift includes an ex-Apple engineer on its staff, Forbes reported.

On March 6, the State Department ordered an item from Grayshift for just over $15,000, according to a purchase order listing available on the U.S. government's public federal procurement data system. The listing is sparse on details, putting the order under the generic label of "computer and computer peripheral equipment." But Motherboard confirmed that the Grayshift in the State Department listing is the same as the one selling iPhone cracking tech: the phone number of the vendor in both the purchase order and documents Motherboard previously obtained detailing a GrayKey purchase by Indiana State Police is the same. The "funding office" for the Grayshift purchase was the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, according to the procurement records. The Bureau acts as the law enforcement and security arm of the State Department, bearing "the core responsibility for providing a safe environment for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy," the State Department website reads.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gadgets Now: Amazon is hiring 1,147 people just for its Alexa business. To put this number in perspective, it has to be mentioned that this number is higher than what Google is hiring for technical and product roles across its Alphabet group of companies including YouTube and Waymo. According to a report published in Forbes, Amazon is hiring engineers, data scientists, developers, analysts, payment services professionals among others. The Forbes report cites information released by Citi Research in association with Jobs.com. It's clear that Amazon is betting big on the smartphone speaker market if the hiring numbers are to go by. It was the first major company to come with a smart speaker and has almost 70% market share in the U.S. Google has been making in-roads with Google Home devices but still has a lot of catching up to do. The Citi report further mentions that other notable areas where Amazon is hiring are devices, advertising and seller services. Amazon is looking at hiring a total of about 1,700 employees for other divisions.

Thomas Fox-Brewster, reporting for Forbes: Just a week after Forbes reported on the claim of Israeli U.S. government manufacturer Cellebrite that it could unlock the latest Apple iPhone models, another service has emerged promising much the same. Except this time it comes from an unkown entity, an obscure American startup named Grayshift, which appears to be run by long-time U.S. intelligence agency contractors and an ex-Apple security engineer. In recent weeks, its marketing materials have been disseminated around private online police and forensics groups, offering a $15,000 iPhone unlock tool named GrayKey, which permits 300 uses. That's for the online mode that requires constant connectivity at the customer end, whilst an offline version costs $30,000. The latter comes with unlimited uses. Another ad showed Grayshift claiming to be able to unlock iPhones running iOS 10 and 11, with iOS 9 support coming soon. It also claims to work on the latest Apple hardware, up to the iPhone 8 and X models released just last year. In a post from one private Google group, handed to Forbes by a source who asked to remain anonymous, the writer indicated they'd been demoed the technology and that it had opened an iPhone X.

Cellebrite, an Israel-based company, knows of ways to unlock every iPhone that's on the market, right up to the iPhone X, Forbes reported on Monday, citing sources. From the report: Cellebrite, a Petah Tikva, Israel-based vendor that's become the U.S. government's company of choice when it comes to unlocking mobile devices, is this month telling customers its engineers currently have the ability to get around the security of devices running iOS 11 . That includes the iPhone X, a model that Forbes has learned was successfully raided for data by the Department for Homeland Security back in November 2017, most likely with Cellebrite technology.

The Israeli firm, a subsidiary of Japan's Sun Corporation, hasn't made any major public announcement about its new iOS capabilities. But Forbes was told by sources (who asked to remain anonymous as they weren't authorized to talk on the matter) that in the last few months the company has developed undisclosed techniques to get into iOS 11 and is advertising them to law enforcement and private forensics folk across the globe. Indeed, the company's literature for its Advanced Unlocking and Extraction Services offering now notes the company can break the security of "Apple iOS devices and operating systems, including iPhone, iPad, iPad mini, iPad Pro and iPod touch, running iOS 5 to iOS 11." Separately, a source in the police forensics community told Forbes he'd been told by Cellebrite it could unlock the iPhone 8. He believed the same was most probably true for the iPhone X, as security across both of Apple's newest devices worked in much the same way.

Bryan Lufkin, writing for BBC: Throughout my career I've worked with people that I've never met in person. In theory, I could spend an entire day without meeting another human face-to-face. But could this kind of self-imposed isolation become standard working practice in the future?

Studies show that in the US, the number of telecommuters rose 115% between 2005 and 2017. And in early 2015, around 500,000 people used Slack, the real-time chat room programme, daily. By last September, that number soared to over 6 million. In 2017 a Gallup poll revealed that 43% of 15,000 Americans say they spend at least some of their time working remotely, a 4% rise from 2012. And a 2015 YouGov study found that 30% of UK office workers say they feel more productive when they work outside their workplace. How would we feel if we never had to work with another person face-to-face again? Would we care? Have things gone so far that we might not even notice?

dryriver writes: A number of pay-to-win microtransaction FPS games, including Dirty Bomb and the $60 Star Wars Battlefront II, have drawn the ire of legislators in countries like Belgium and the United States. Not only are advanced characters like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader and various weapons and abilities in these games "locked" -- you pay for them in hard cash, or play for them for dozens and dozens of tedious hours -- the games also feature so called "Loot Boxes," which are boxes that contain a random item, weapon, character or ability. So like playing slot machines in Vegas, each time you can get something good, something mediocre or something totally crap. You cannot determine with any certainty what you will get for your real-world dollars or in-game achievements. Angry Reddit users recently downvoted a blundering statement by EA on the topic with a whopping 249,000 downvotes -- an all time downvote record on Reddit, shocking EA into retreating from its pay-to-win model and announcing unspecified "changes" now being made to Star Wars Battlefront II. Legislators in a number of countries have also sharply criticized "Loot Boxes" and "microtransactions" in games, with one legislator in Belgium vowing to have the sale of such games banned completely in the EU, because children are essentially being forced to "gamble with real money" in these games. Forbes has written a great piece about how EA is now essentially stuck with a $60 Star Wars game that cost a lot to make but probably cannot be monetized any further, because there is considerable risk of all games with loot boxes, microtransactions and "pay to win" monetization models being completely banned from sale in a number of different countries now. The morale of the story? Maybe people should not pay a game developer any more than the $40-60 they paid when they thought they "bought" the game in the first place.

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Techdirt that claims the company has "chosen to proclaim its willingness to hack into its own customers' devices if the government asks." From the report: From a Forbes article: "[CEO John] Chen, speaking at a press Q&A during the BlackBerry Security Summit in London on Tuesday, claimed that it wasn't so simple for BlackBerry to crack its own protections. 'Only when the government gives us a court order we will start tracking it. Then the question is: how good is the encryption? 'Today's encryption has got to the point where it's rather difficult, even for ourselves, to break it, to break our own encryption... it's not an easily breakable thing. We will only attempt to do that if we have the right court order. The fact that we will honor the court order doesn't imply we could actually get it done.'"

Oddly, this came coupled with Chen's assertions its user protections were better than Apple's and its version of the Android operating system more secure than the one offered by competitors. This proactive hacking offer may be pointed to in the future by DOJ and FBI officials as evidence Apple, et al aren't doing nearly enough to cooperate with U.S. law enforcement. Of course, Chen's willingness to try doesn't guarantee the company will be able to decrypt communications of certain users. Blackberry may be opening up to law enforcement but it won't be sharing anything more with its remaining users. From the Forbes article: "Chen also said there were no plans for a transparency report that would reveal more about the company's work with government. 'No one has really asked us for it. We don't really have a policy on whether we will do it or not. Just like every major technology company that deals with telecoms, we obviously have quite a number of requests around the world.'"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: A demonstration video posted by Positive Technologies (and first reported by Forbes) shows how easy it is to hack into a bitcoin wallet by intercepting text messages in transit. The group targeted a Coinbase account protected by two-factor authentication, which was registered to a Gmail account also protected by two-factor. By exploiting known flaws in the cell network, the group was able to intercept all text messages sent to the number for a set period of time. That was enough to reset the password to the Gmail account and then take control of the Coinbase wallet. All the group needed was the name, surname and phone number of the targeted Bitcoin user. These were security researchers rather than criminals, so they didn't actually steal anyone's bitcoin, although that would have been an easy step to take. At a glance, this looks like a Coinbase vulnerability, but the real weakness is in the cellular system itself. Positive Technologies was able to hijack the text messages using its own research tool, which exploits weaknesses in the cellular network to intercept text messages in transit. Known as the SS7 network, that network is shared by every telecom to manage calls and texts between phone numbers. There are a number of known SS7 vulnerabilities, and while access to the SS7 network is theoretically restricted to telecom companies, hijacking services are frequently available on criminal marketplaces. The report notes of several ways you can protect yourself from this sort of attack: "On some services, you can revoke the option for SMS two-factor and account recovery entirely, which you should do as soon as you've got a more secure app-based method established. Google, for instance, will let you manage two-factor and account recovery here and here; just set up Authenticator or a recovery code, then go to the SMS option for each and click 'Remove Phone.'"

Cummins has beat Tesla to the punch by unveiling its own electric semi truck. According to Forbes, the fully electric, class 7 day-cab urban hauler, called Aeos, gets 100 miles of range from its 140-kWh battery pack and can haul a 22-ton trailer. While the company does offer the options of additional battery packs to triple the range or a range-extending engine generator, the Aeos is better suited for city use rather than long-haul trucking. Autoblog reports: While this electric truck is a concept, it's a working demonstration of a product Cummins plans to start producing in 2019. At the unveiling in Columbus, Ind., Cummins also revealed its latest near-zero-emissions natural gas engines, as well as the X15 and lightweight X12 clean diesel engines. The company said it is embracing new technologies that allow its customers to contribute to a sustainable future.

mrspoonsi writes: Shares in Tesla have plummeted more than 13 percent this week after lower than expected deliveries and the Model S only attaining an acceptable result in recent crash tests. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety states: "Tesla made changes to the safety belt in vehicles built after January with the intent of reducing the dummy's forward movement. However, when IIHS tested the modified Model S, the same problem occurred, and the rating didn't change. Although the two tested vehicles had identical structure, the second test resulted in greater intrusion into the driver's space because the left front wheel movement wasn't consistent. Maximum intrusion increased from less than 2 inches to 11 inches in the lower part and to 5 inches at the instrument panel in the second test. The first test resulted in a good rating for structural integrity, while the second test resulted in an acceptable structural rating. The two tests' structural ratings were combined, resulting in acceptable structure and an acceptable rating overall for the Model S." A Tesla spokesperson responded to the IIHS's crash rating in a statement to Forbes: "IIHS and dozens of other private industry groups around the world have methods and motivations that suit their own subjective purposes."

There are many ride-sharing applications on the market but only two get all the media attention: Uber and Lyft. As many of you know, Uber has had a tumultuous year marked by a high-stakes legal fight with Alphabet over Google self-driving car trade secrets, a investigation by the U.S. government into the company's use of a software tool that helped its drivers avoid detection in parts of the country where the service wasn't allowed to operate in, and a sexual harassment investigation that resulted in 20 employees being fired. Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick resigned due to many of these scandals and investor pressure. Despite all of this, Uber continues to do well. Last week, the company announced it hit 5 billion rides across 6 continents, 76 countries, and 450+ cities.

Meanwhile, Lyft, which is only available in the U.S., just announced it hit one million rides a day. The company also says it's seen 48 consecutive months of ride growth and is on track to hit an annualized ride rate of 350 million. Our question to you is this: what ride-sharing app is your favorite? Have you found yourself gravitating more towards Lyft due to Uber's messes, or does that not matter much to you? Bonus: do you have a favorite ride-sharing app that's not Lyft or Uber?

The New York Times has obtained a document revealing the hotel lobby's aggressive plan to undermine Airbnb's business "by pushing for bills to regulate the company at every level of government," reports Gizmodo. From the report: According to documents from the American Hotel and Lodging Association -- a trade group that includes the country's biggest hotel chains, including Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, the Four Seasons and Starwood Hotels -- the organization is planning a multi-pronged attack at local, state, and federal levels to prevent Airbnb from spreading to new cities across the country. Part of the strategy includes "aggressively countering" Airbnb's claim that it's just helping the middle class make ends meet "with a wave of personal testimonials of consumer harm." The document essentially serves as opposition research and gives its members talking points about Airbnb's alleged racism and taxation issues. According to the document, the association will focus its efforts on Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, and Miami, where Airbnb has yet to establish a strong footing.

Peter Thiel recently complained parts of Silicon Valley are "hyper-politically correct" about sexual activity, and shared a friend's theory that conservative parts of America tolerate Silicon Valley "because people there just don't have that much sex. They're not having that much fun." Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike quotes Business Insider's investigation into Thiel's claim. Silicon Valley has the highest ratio of single men to single women... (However, it's worth noting that the San Francisco metropolitan area also has the highest ratio of people who identify as LGBT in the U.S.) In fact, Dr. Sandra Lindholm, a sex therapist and clinical psychologist in the Bay Area, recently told Forbes that she's now seeing an uptick in young, male clients who complain about a variety of sexual challenges and issues. "They're coming to sex therapy because they don't feel they have time or energy for sex," Lindhold said.

Some of the common issues include low sexual desire, difficulty meeting women, and performance issues. Plus, she points out people in tech generally have a reputation for being introverted. Another particular issue that frequently comes up is what she calls "tech overload": people spend so much time on their gadgets that they "forget about being in the moment." Although there's no official data on Silicon Valley's sex frequency, a 2012 survey by condom maker Trojan revealed that Bay Area residents had the least amount of sex and the shortest time in bed, in a sample of 10 major US cities including New York, Chicago, Miami, and so on.