Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes from a report on Mashable: Google is paying Arizona residents $20 per hour to test its self-driving vehicles. The 'Self-Driving Vehicle Operator/Operations Associate' needs to have a clean driving record, no criminal history, a BS or a BA degree and the ability to type at least 40 words per minute, according to the job listing. The job involves driving 6-8 hours a day in a two person team, five days a week while monitoring the car's systems with "constant focus" and filling up daily reports. "[Test drivers] give our engineers feedback about how our cars are driving and interacting with others on the road, and can take control of the vehicle if needed," Brian Torcellini, head of operations for Google's Self-Driving Car testing program, told The Arizona Republic. The job listing comes about a month after Google announced it would expand its self-driving car testing program to Phoenix, Arizona. At that announcement, Google said it wants to test how autonomous vehicles behave in Phoenix's desert conditions and high temperatures.

An anonymous reader writes: China's technology sector is booming at an intensely fast pace. Many startups are seeing their business grow faster than they can hire, placing a heavy burden on those already working within the industry. "The pace of Chinese internet company growth is extremely fast," Cui Meng, general manager and cofounder of data startup Goopal, told Reuters. "I've been to the US and the competitive environment there isn't as intense as in China." This has led many workers to put in overtime, sleeping at their desks, on cots, or even in provided bunk beds. Many employees are encouraged to live at the office during the workweek. Lunchtime naps are generally allowed, and those who end up staying past midnight usually pass out in the office.Reuters has amazing photographs of such offices and employees.

On Saturday voters in Austin, Texas refused to repeal a new regulation that requires fingerprinting drivers for ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft. In Austin's most expensive election ever, the ride-sharing services spent over $8.2 million pushing Proposition 1, apparently outspending their opponents by a 80:1 ratio. But on election day, the proposal to repeal ultimately received just 39,083 votes -- 44% of the total cast -- meaning the lobbyists spent $209 for each vote received. Both services have said they will cease operations in Austin rather than perform the fingerprint-based criminal background checks.

"Tesla Motors Inc said it was stepping up production plans for its upcoming Model 3 mass-market sedan and would build a total of 500,000 all-electric vehicles in 2018, two years ahead of schedule, but warned that spending will ramp up in tandem," reports Reuters. Tesla said capital spending would rise about 50% more than originally planned this year, to around $2.25 billion. Producing 500,000 vehicles in 2018 will be no easy task, especially considering the company is only on track to deliver between 80,000 and 90,000 electric vehicles this year. In addition to producing 500,000 electric vehicles in 2018, Elon Musk also said the company expects to produce nearly 1 million vehicles in 2020. These are certainly ambitious goals, even for a company that had the 'biggest one-week launch of any product ever.'

An anonymous reader writes (edited and condensed): The New York State Department of Financial Services has approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade digital currency ether on its bitcoin exchange, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Thursday. Cuomo said Gemini would be the first U.S.-based ether exchange, created, and operated in New York. Ether is a token or digital asset of the Ethereum platform, a public blockchain, or distributed ledger, that can execute peer-to-peer contracts automatically without the need for intermediaries. The blockchain is the underlying technology behind bitcoin. The Winklevoss twins have dubbed the exchange the 'Nasdaq of Bitcoin.' They have also developed a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would go by the name COIN, which regulators have yet to approve.CoinDesk has more information.

An anonymous reader writes: According to Reuters, "Using a culture method previously tested to grow mouse embryos outside of a mother, the teams were able to conduct almost hour by hour observations of human embryo development to see how they develop and organize themselves up to day 13."

Brave new world, here we come From the report: "The work, covered in two studies published on Wednesday in the journal Nature and Nature Cell Biology, showed how the cells that will eventually form the human body self-organize into the basic structure of a post-implantation human embryo. As well as advancing human biology expertise, the knowledge gained from studying these developments should help to improve in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments and further progress in the field of regenerative medicine, the researchers said. But the research also raises the issue of an international law banning scientists from developing human embryos beyond 14 days, and suggests this limit may have to be reviewed. 'Longer cultures could provide absolutely critical information for basic human biology,' said researcher Zernicka-Goetz. 'But this would of course raise the next question - of where we should put the next limit.'"

Eric Auchard, reporting for Reuters (edited and condensed): Hundreds of millions of hacked usernames and passwords for email accounts and other websites are being traded in Russia's criminal underworld, a security expert told Reuters. The discovery of 272.3 million stolen accounts included a majority of users of Mail.ru, Russia's most popular email service, and smaller fractions of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft email users (Editor's note: the numbers are: 57M Mail.ru, 24M Google, 40M Yahoo, and 33M Hotmail), said Alex Holden, founder and chief information security officer of Hold Security. [...] The latest discovery came after Hold Security researchers found a young Russian hacker bragging in an online forum that he had collected and was ready to give away a far larger number of stolen credentials that ended up totaling 1.17 billion records.Amir Efrati, a reporter with The Information, asks: "Industry seems to be failing at convince email users to do 2-step verification. Why not require it?"

An anonymous reader writes: The FBI has no idea how the hack used in unlocking the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone 5C works, but it paid a sum less than $1m for the mechanism, according to a report. Reuters, citing several U.S. government sources, note that the government intelligence agency didn't pay a value over $1.3m for purchasing the hack from professional hackers, as previously reported by many outlets. The technique can also be used as many times as needed without further payments, the report adds. The FBI director, James Comey, said last week that the agency paid more to get into the iPhone 5C than he will make in the remaining seven years and four months he has in his job, suggesting the hack cost more than $1.3m, based on his annual salary.

archatheist shares a Reuters report: A nuclear power plant in Germany has been found to be infected with computer viruses, but they appear not to have posed a threat to the facility's operations because it is isolated from the Internet, the station's operator said on Tuesday. The Gundremmingen plant, located about 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Munich, is run by the German utility RWE. The viruses, which include "W32.Ramnit" and "Conficker", were discovered at Gundremmingen's B unit in a computer system retrofitted in 2008 with data visualization software associated with equipment for moving nuclear fuel rods, RWE said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: FBI Director James Comey said on Tuesday that his agency was still assessing whether a vulnerability used to unlock an iPhone linked to one of the San Bernardino killers would go through a government review to determine if it should be disclosed to Apple or the public. "We are in the midst of trying to sort that out," Comey said. "The threshold (for disclosure) is, are we aware of the vulnerability, or did we just buy a tool and don't have sufficient knowledge of the vulnerability to implicate the process?" The White House has a procedure for reviewing technology security flaws and deciding which ones should be made public. Although officials say the process leans toward disclosure, it is not set up to handle or reveal flaws that are discovered and owned by private companies, sources have told Reuters, raising questions about the effectiveness of the so-called Vulnerabilities Equities Process.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. Justice Department has approved Charter Communications Inc's proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc and Bright House networks, which would create the second-largest broadband provider and third largest video-provider. The Justice Department valued the purchase of Time Warner Cable at $78 billion and Bright House at $10.4 billion. Under terms, New Charter has agreed to refrain from telling its content providers that they cannot also sell shows online. The deal must also be approved by the Federal Communications Commission. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Monday he circulated an order seeking approval of the merger with conditions that "will directly benefit consumers by bringing and protecting competition to the video marketplace and increasing broadband deployment."

An anonymous reader writes: Dutch police have seized and shut down Ennetcom, an encrypted communications network with 19,000 users, according to Reuters. The network's 36-year-old owner, Danny Manupassa, has also been arrested, and faces charges of money laundering and illegal weapons possession, while the information obtained in the seizure may also be used for other criminal prosecutions. "Police and prosecutors believe that they have captured the largest encrypted network used by organized crime in the Netherlands," prosecutors said in a statement.

"Although using encrypted communications is legal," Reuters reports, "many of the network's users are believed to have been engaged in 'serious criminal activity,' said spokesman Wim de Bruin of the national prosecutor's office, which noted that the company's modified phones have repeatedly turned up in cases involving drugs, criminal motorcycle gangs, and gangland killings.
A spokesman for the National Prosecutor's office "declined to comment on whether and how police would be able to decrypt information kept on the servers."

Dustin Volz, reporting for Reuters: U.S. lawmakers are pressing the nation's top intelligence official to estimate the number of Americans ensnared in email surveillance and other such spying on foreign targets, saying the information was needed to gauge possible reforms to the controversial programs. Eight Democrats and six Republicans made the request to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in a letter seen by Reuters on Friday, reflecting the continued bipartisan concerns over the scope of U.S. data espionage. "You have willingly shared information with us about the important and actionable intelligence obtained under these surveillance programs," wrote the lawmakers, all members of the U.S. House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee. "Now we require your assistance in making a determination that the privacy protections in place are functioning as designed." They requested that Clapper provide the information about data collected under a statute, known as Section 702, by May 6.

Earlier this a year, a spelling mistake in an online bank transfer prevented nearly $1 billion heist at Bangladesh's central bank and the New York Fed. The hackers, however, still had managed to steal about $80 million. Bangladesh government blamed the New York Fed for not spotting the suspicious transactions earlier. As it turns out, they should also be taking some blame, if not all. An anonymous reader writes: Bangladesh's central bank was vulnerable to hackers because it did not have a firewall and used second-hand, $10 switches to network computers connected to the SWIFT global payment network, an investigator into one of the world's biggest cyber heists said. The shortcomings made it easier for hackers to break into the Bangladesh Bank system earlier this year and attempt to siphon off nearly $1 billion using the bank's SWIFT credentials, said Mohammad Shah Alam, head of the Forensic Training Institute of the Bangladesh police's criminal investigation department.

Earlier this a year, a spelling mistake in an online bank transfer prevented nearly $1 billion heist at Bangladesh's central bank and the New York Fed. The hackers, however, still had managed to steal about $80 million. Bangladesh government blamed the New York Fed for not spotting the suspicious transactions earlier. As it turns out, they should also be taking some blame, if not all. An anonymous reader writes: Bangladesh's central bank was vulnerable to hackers because it did not have a firewall and used second-hand, $10 switches to network computers connected to the SWIFT global payment network, an investigator into one of the world's biggest cyber heists said. The shortcomings made it easier for hackers to break into the Bangladesh Bank system earlier this year and attempt to siphon off nearly $1 billion using the bank's SWIFT credentials, said Mohammad Shah Alam, head of the Forensic Training Institute of the Bangladesh police's criminal investigation department.

An anonymous reader writes: Harriet Tubman will become the first African-American woman to be featured on the face of U.S. paper currency in more than a century. Tubman was born a slave and went on to become an anti-slavery crusader. Ironically, she will be replacing Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the U.S. and a slave owner. According to Wikipedia, "Jackson held as many as 44 [slaves] by 1820, and later held up to 150 slaves, making him among planter elite. Throughout his lifetime Jackson may have owned as many as 300 slaves." The decision to feature a woman on a bill started in part from a young girl's letter to President Obama about the lack of women on U.S. currency. A social media campaign "Women on 20s" then began pushing for a woman to replace Jackson on the currency early last year. Originally, the department announced it would feature a woman on the $10 bill instead of Alexander Hamilton. Now it's being reported Hamilton will stay on the front of the bill with a group of women on the back of it. Civil rights era leaders will reportedly be depicted in the new $5 bill.

Reader Zane C. writes: The president of Japan's sixth largest auto corporation has admitted to manipulating test data on fuel economy (mileage test data) for 625,000 total eK Wagon and eK Space models, as well as the Dayz and Dayz Roox models produced for Nissan Motors. The tests overstated fuel efficiency by 5 percent to 10 percent. The offending models have been taken off the market until the problem is fixed, and foreign markets are being investigated for similar violations. Upon the announcement of the manipulations, Mitsubishi's stock dropped 15% and it lost 1.2 billion dollars in market value. The company apologized for the deception and said that it is investigating the employees involved. According to Mitsubishi, it was Nissan's in-house testers that discovered the discrepancy between the cars' published fuel efficiency data, and their real-life results. The affected models are sold exclusively in Japan.

An anonymous reader cites a report on Reuters: German carmaker Audi created so-called defeat devices which cut emissions in 1999, years before parent company Volkswagen used them to cheat diesel emissions tests, German newspaper Handelsblatt reported on Tuesday. VW, Europe's largest automaker, admitted in September it had manipulated the engines of around 11 million diesel cars, including its VW, Audi, Porsche, Skoda and Seat brands. Engineers at Audi developed software capable of turning off certain engine functions in 1999, but it was never used by the VW luxury division, the newspaper said in an advance release of an article due to be published on Wednesday, which cited industry and company sources. Six years later, when VW engineers at the firm's Wolfsburg headquarters were unable to bring nitrogen oxide emissions below legal thresholds, they started to install the software developed by Audi, Handelsblatt said.

Dustin Volz, reporting for Reuters: Apple has been asked by Chinese authorities within the last two years to hand over its source code but refused to do so, the company's top lawyer told U.S. lawmakers at a hearing on Tuesday. Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell made the statement in response to a line of attack from law enforcement officials who have attempted to portray Apple as complicit in handing over information to Chinese authorities for business reasons while refusing to cooperate with U.S. requests for access to private data in criminal investigations. Apple and the FBI returned to Washington to testify before lawmakers about their heated disagreement over law enforcement access to encrypted devices, highlighted in the case of a locked iPhone linked to a gunman in last December's Islamist militant-inspired shootings in San Bernardino, California. Earlier in the hearing before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, Captain Charles Cohen, commander in the Indiana State Police, repeated the suggestion that Apple has quietly cooperated with Beijing. But when pressed by Representative Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat, for the source of that claim, Cohen only cited news reports. "That takes my breath away," a visibly frustrated Eshoo said. "That is a huge allegation."In some other Apple news, the Cupertino-based company complied with 80% of U.S. law enforcement requests in the second half of 2015, its just released transparency report shows. U.S. law enforcement asked Apple for information 4,000 times, covering 16,112 devices in the second half of 2015.

An anonymous reader cites an article on Fortune: On Monday, Bill Gates attempted a commendable feat: to get politicians to focus on something other than the current election cycle and its partisan bickering. In an op-ed published by Reuters, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft called on the United States to spur technological innovation by increasing its investment in research and development. "Government funding for our world-class research institutions produces the new technologies that American entrepreneurs take to market," he wrote. But while other nations like South Korea and China have drastically upped their R and D spending, the United States' has "essentially flatlined." He said that the rest of the world's commitment to research and development is great, "but if the United States is going to maintain its leading role, it needs to up its game." His call for more government-sponsored R&D also comes as corporations pull back on their commitment to discovery and innovation. With more government investment, he said, U.S. scientists could completely eradicate polio and further decrease the number of deaths from malaria. More funding could also "develop the technologies that will power the world -- while also fighting climate change, promoting energy independence, and providing affordable energy for the 1.3 billion poor people who don't have it today."

schwit1 quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. federal, state and local government agencies rank in last place in cyber security when compared against 17 major private industries, including transportation, retail and healthcare, according to a new report released Thursday. The analysis, from venture-backed security risk benchmarking startup SecurityScorecard, measured the relative security health of government and industries across 10 categories, including vulnerability to malware infections, exposure rates of passwords and susceptibility to social engineering, such as an employee using corporate account information on a public social network. Educations, telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries also ranked low, the report found. Information services, construction, food and technology were among the top performers. And we are supposed to trust them with healthcare? This report comes after President Obama recently unveiled a commission of private, public and academic experts to bolster the U.S. cyber security sector.

An anonymous reader writes: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn't own the technique used to unlock the San Bernardino iPhone, so it can't reveal the method to Apple even if it wanted to, Reuters reported, citing unnamed White House sources. The Washington Post reported yesterday, citing unnamed sources, that the FBI had paid a hacker a one-time fee to use a piece of hardware that allowed it to access the iPhone 5c belonging to one of the San Bernardino, California assailants. The vendor that supplied the hack is a non-US company, according to Reuters. But according to the Post report, it is not the Israeli firm Cellebrite, which had previously been named. The FBI would require the vendor's cooperation in order to submit the technique it used to Vulnerabilities Equities Process, a mechanism that allows the government to consider whether it should disclose security flaws to manufacturers. It's a move that mirrors Apple's own efforts to create security systems on its phones that even it wouldn't be able to crack, meaning it can't comply with a government order to hand over user data even if it wanted to.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein released the official version of their anti-encryption bill today after a draft appeared online last week. The bill, titled the Compliance with Court Orders Act 2016, would require tech firms to decrypt customers' data at a court's request. The bill is not expected to get anywhere in the Senate. President Obama has also indicated that he will not support the bill, Reuters reports. The bill requires legislation requires communications services to backdoor their encryption in order to provide "intelligible information or data, or appropriate technical assistance to obtain such information or data." Sen. Feinstein stated, "The bill we have drafted would simply provide that, if a court of law issues an order to render technical assistance or provide decrypted data, the company or individual would be required to do so. Today, terrorists and criminals are increasingly using encryption to foil law enforcement efforts, even in the face of a court order. We need strong encryption to protect personal data, but we also need to know when terrorists are plotting to kill Americans."

An anonymous reader writes: Peabody Energy Corp filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection on Wednesday after a sharp drop in coal prices left it unable to service debt of $10.1 billion, much of it incurred for an expansion into Australia. As demand for metallurgical coal fell, particularly in China, Peabody's financial woes intensified. The company took a $700 million write-down on its Australian metallurgical coal assets last year. At home, the U.S. shale boom of the past few years made natural gas competitive with thermal coal, and the Obama administration's environmental regulations raised operational costs. Mr. Peabody's coal train might not be hauling away any more of paradise. Peabody, the world's biggest private-sector coal producer, said it expected its mines to continue to operate as usual and said its Australian assets were excluded from the bankruptcy. "This process enables us to strengthen liquidity and reduce debt, build upon the significant operational achievements we've made in recent years and lay the foundation for long-term stability and success in the future," Peabody Chief Executive Officer Glenn Kellow said in a statement.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: In one of the largest U.S. strikes in recent years, nearly 40,000 Verizon workers walked off the job on Wednesday after contract talks hit an impasse. The event got a boost as U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders joined them at a Brooklyn rally ahead of the New York primary next week. The strike was called by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers that jointly represent employees with such jobs as customer services representatives and network technicians in Verizon Communications Inc's traditional wireline phone operations. The strike could affect service in Verizon's Fios Internet, telephone and TV services businesses across several U.S. East Coast states, including New York, Massachusetts and Virginia. Verizon and the unions have been talking since last June over the company's plans to cut healthcare and pension-related benefits over a three-year period. The workers have been without a contract since its agreement expired in August. Issues include healthcare, offshoring call center jobs, temporary job relocations and pensions.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, cosmologist Stephen Hawking and a group of scientists and philanthropists announced a $100 million research program to send robotic probes to nearby stars within a generation. The group believes that using a nano-spacecraft propelled by lasers, they will be able to reach Alpha Centauri in just over 20 years after launch. The nearest star system is 40 trillion km away, which using current technology would take about 30,000 years to reach there. The aforementioned group said that thanks to their research and development, they might be able to make a spacecraft that could cut down the duration to 30 years. Reuters reports: Tuesday's announcement, made with cosmologist Stephen Hawking, comes less than a year after the announcement of Breakthrough Listen. That decade-long, $100 million project, also backed by Milner, monitors radio signals for signs of intelligent life across the universe. Breakthrough Starshot involves deploying small light-propelled vehicles to carry equipment like cameras and communication equipment. Scientists hope the vehicles, known as nano-craft, will eventually fly at 20 percent of the speed of light, more than a thousand times faster than today's spacecraft. "The thing would look like the chip from your cell phone with this very thin gauzy light sail," said Pete Worden, the former director of NASA's Ames Research Center, who is leading the project. "It would be something like 10, 12 feet across."The Atlantic has just published an in-depth report on this, also explaining how this project came to being. You can also watch the live stream of the press conference.

kheldan quotes a report from Consumerist: Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein are expected to introduce a bill regarding phone encryption as soon as this week, according to Reuters. The draft text will give judges authority to order tech companies to help law enforcement when asked to -- basically, it would be a newer piece of law to fall back on than the All Writs Act of 1789, which is the one that usually sees use for this sort of thing. However, sources tell Reuters that the bill "does not spell out what companies might have to do or the circumstances under which they could be ordered to help," and therefore really doesn't necessarily change the underlying discussions at play, both in the tech world and in government. Nor does the bill specify penalties for failing to comply. The FBI recently briefed Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein on the methods used to unlock the San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone 5c. According to Reuters, the White House is declining to offer public support for draft legislation Burr and Feinstein are currently working on because the administration is "deeply divided on the issue." The White House has reviewed the text and offered feedback, but it is expected to provide minimal public input, if any, sources familiar with the discussions said.

kheldan quotes a report from Consumerist: Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein are expected to introduce a bill regarding phone encryption as soon as this week, according to Reuters. The draft text will give judges authority to order tech companies to help law enforcement when asked to -- basically, it would be a newer piece of law to fall back on than the All Writs Act of 1789, which is the one that usually sees use for this sort of thing. However, sources tell Reuters that the bill "does not spell out what companies might have to do or the circumstances under which they could be ordered to help," and therefore really doesn't necessarily change the underlying discussions at play, both in the tech world and in government. Nor does the bill specify penalties for failing to comply. The FBI recently briefed Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein on the methods used to unlock the San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone 5c. According to Reuters, the White House is declining to offer public support for draft legislation Burr and Feinstein are currently working on because the administration is "deeply divided on the issue." The White House has reviewed the text and offered feedback, but it is expected to provide minimal public input, if any, sources familiar with the discussions said.

Even though the FBI was able to gain access to the San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone without Apple's help, the Apple-FBI saga continues. It was reported yesterday the FBI is telling members of Congress of the methods used to break into the iPhone 5c. The most recent tidbit comes from FBI Director James Comey in regard to how many iPhones are at risk from the unlock tool.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday that the government had purchased "a tool" from a private party in order to unlock the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. "Litigation between the government and Apple over the San Bernardino phone has ended, because the government has purchased, from a private party, a way to get into that phone, 5c, running iOS 9," Comey said. The FBI director also said the purchased tool worked only on a "narrow slice of phones" that does not include the newest Apple models, or the 5s.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The White House said on Wednesday it will redirect $589 million in funds to prepare for the Zika virus before the mosquito that carries it begins to emerge in the continental United States, but urged Congress to act quickly on its request for more money. Most of the $589 million will come from $2.7 billion in funds set aside for public health projects aimed at the Ebola virus. White House budget director Shaun Donovan said the use of money previously provided for fighting another health crisis, the Ebola virus, was only a temporary fix for Zika funding. Donovan said some measures to fight Zika would have to be delayed, curtailed or stopped unless the U.S. Congress approves more than $1.8 billion in emergency funds requested by the Obama administration in February. The Zika virus, linked to a growing number of cases of the birth defect microcephaly in Brazil, is spreading rapidly in Latin America and the Caribbean and heading north as the weather gets warmer.

An anonymous reader writes: Edward Snowden, a former contractor with the NSA who worked with journalist to reveal a number of classified mass surveillance programs, has criticized the UK Prime Minister's insistence that his father's implication in the list of high-profile tax avoiders was a "private matter." Ian Cameron's firm Blairmore Holdings Inc managed tens of millions of pounds for the wealthy but has never paid taxes on the profits. Cameron responded to the news saying: "This is a private matter, I am focused on what the government is doing." In response to a Reuters story on Cameron's response, Snowden wrote: "Oh, now he's interested in privacy." Snowden followed up with a second tweet after the Prime Minister of Iceland resigned over his implication in the Panama Papers leak: "Resignation of Iceland's PM may explain why the UK PM is so insistent public has no right to know a PM's 'private' finances."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: PayPal Holdings Inc on Tuesday canceled plans to open a global operations center in Charlotte, North Carolina and invest $3.6 million in the area after the state passed a controversial law targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens. In a letter on March 29, founders and chief executives of more than a hundred companies, including Apple Inc, Twitter Inc, and Alphabet Inc urged North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory to repeal the legislation. PayPal is one of the first companies to protest the controversial measure requiring people to use bathrooms or locker rooms in schools and other public facilities that match the gender on their birth certificate rather than their gender identity. "The new law perpetuates discrimination and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal's mission and culture," Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman said in a statement. PayPal's original plan was to open the operations center in Charlotte and employ 400 skilled workers there.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Uber CEO Travis Kalanick will go to court over price fixing claims after he initially tried to get the lawsuit dismissed. U.S. district court judge in New York ruled Kalanick has to face the class of passengers alleging that he conspired with drivers to set fares using an algorithm, including hiking rates during peak hours with so-called surge pricing. According to Reuters, district court judge Jed Rakoff ruled the plaintiffs "plausibly alleged a conspiracy" to fix pricing and that the class action could also pursue claims the set rates led to the demise [of] other services, like Sidecar.

An anonymous reader writes: Students were transported in a Virginia school bus carrying inert explosives left by the CIA, officials said. The explosives were discovered in the engine, only after the Loudoun County Public Schools bus was undergoing maintenance. "The CIA assured Loudoun officials the training material used in this exercise is stable and posed no danger to students on board the bus," it said in a statement. The school district said the inert explosives, left behind by a CIA canine team, were inside a container and part of them apparently fell out into the engine space.

Yasmeen Abutaleb and Joseph Menn, reporting for Reuters: Facebook wouldn't let the government circumvent the service's security to conduct surveillance. Egypt blocked Facebook's Free Basics Internet service at the end of last year after the U.S. company refused to give the Egyptian government the ability to spy on users, two people familiar with the matter said. Two sources with direct knowledge of discussions between Facebook and the Egyptian government said Free Basics was blocked because the company would not allow the government to circumvent the service's security to conduct surveillance.

Reader schwit1 quotes an article by Simon Denyer, who heads The Washington Post's China bureau: The ancient tradition of hoaxing and playing practical jokes on the first day of April has fallen victim to China's crackdown. Like democracy and free speech, it is a Western concept that simply isn't welcome here."'April Fools' Day' is not consistent with our cultural tradition, or socialist core values," state news agency Xinhua announced on social media Friday. "Hope nobody believes in rumors, makes rumors or spreads rumors." As part of a long-running effort to win control of the narrative on social media and deter dissent, China's Communist Party launched a campaign three years ago to criminalize the spreading of rumors. Xinhua's post suggests an April Fools' Day prank that mocked or undermined the Party could have potentially serious consequences.

Arthur Dent '99 writes: Today, Reddit deleted wording in its transparency report that would normally indicate that they had not received any "national security letters" or "other classified requests for user information." Such "national security letters" contain penalties for telling others about the request, as the government wishes to keep the request secret. However, because Reddit had placed pre-existing wording in their transparency report in the event of such a letter, they were able to simply delete the existing wording to passively inform others that a request had been received, without actually saying anything at all. This usage of pre-existing wording is known as a "warrant canary" to indicate danger, such as real canaries were used in the past to indicate the presence of deadly gases in coal mines.

Russell Brandom reports for The Verge: Apple's San Bernardino fight may be over, but the government is still seeking both Apple and Google's help in unlocking phones. New research from the American Civil Liberties Union shows 63 different cases in which the government compelled help from Apple or Google in unlocking a handset. It's unclear how many of the orders were filled, although companies often complied with such orders where possible before last year. The bulk of the cases target Apple, but nine of the orders also look to compel Google's help, typically to reset the password on a given device. The devices include phones from Alcatel, Kyocera, and Samsung, many of which shipped without the default device encryption that blocked the use of traditional forensic tools in the San Bernardino case.

Alastair Sharp reports for Reuters: Seven in 10 people say the 'dark net' -- an anonymous online home to both criminals and activists fearful of government surveillance -- should be shut down, according to a global Ipsos poll released on Tuesday. The findings, from a poll of at least 1,000 people in each of 24 countries, come as policymakers and technology companies argue over whether digital privacy should be curbed to help regulators and law enforcement more easily thwart hackers and other digital threats.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP moved on Thursday to overthrow the entire board of Yahoo Inc, including Chief Executive Marissa Mayer, who has struggled to turn around the company in her nearly four years at the helm. Starboard, which has been pushing for changes at Yahoo since 2014 and owns about 1.7 percent of the company, said it would nominate nine candidates for the board. The proxy fight comes as Yahoo is pressing ahead with an auction of its core Internet business, which includes search, mail and news sites. Yahoo and Starboard could still come to an agreement before the company's annual meeting, expected to be in late June. If they cannot avoid a proxy fight and the Yahoo board election is taken to a shareholder vote, attention will swing to the large mutual and index funds that own the stock and will carry heavy weight in the final tally. Yahoo and Starboard representatives met on March 10 to discuss ways the two sides could avoid a proxy fight, according to people familiar with the matter. But those talks broke down, in part because Starboard was upset by Yahoo's announcement that same day that it appointed two new board directors, these people say.

An anonymous reader writes: Samsung on Thursday announced that it plans to reform its internal culture to act like a startup. Se Young Lee reports for Reuters, "Samsung's executives will sign a pledge to move away from a top-down culture and towards a working environment that fosters open dialogue. The flagship firm of South Korea's dominant conglomerate will also reduce the number of levels in its staff hierarchy and hold more frequent online discussions between business division heads and employees. [...] The pronouncement is the latest among sweeping changes attempted at a time of crisis by the conglomerate and carries echoes of a 1993 exhortation by Samsung Group patriarch Lee Kun-hee to executives to 'change everything but your wife and children.'"

tlhIngan writes: Earlier this week, the FBI asked the court for a continuance so it could do some research into a proposed method of cracking the [iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino, California shooters]. It turns out the FBI has contracted Cellebrite for $15,000 to break into the phone. Cellebrite is an Israeli software provider specializing in mobile phone forensics software. If they succeed, it would mean Apple would no longer need to be involved.

mdsolar quotes a report from Reuters: The Rockefeller Family Fund said on Wednesday it will divest from fossil fuels as quickly as possible and "eliminate holdings" of Exxon Mobil, chiding the oil company for allegedly misleading the public about the threat of climate change. The move by the U.S. based charity, which will also include coal and Canadian oil sands holdings, is especially notable because a century ago John D. Rockefeller Sr. made a fortune running Standard Oil, a precursor to Exxon Mobil.
Given the threat posed to the survival of human and natural ecosystems, "there is no sane rationale for companies to continue to explore for new sources of hydrocarbons," the fund said. Exxon did not immediately comment. In a letter posted on its website, the Rockefeller Family Fund said Exxon's conduct on climate issues appears to be "morally reprehensible."

tlhIngan writes: It's no secret Apple [is] on a privacy bent as of late. But that extends inside of Apple as well with various internal groups fighting for access to user data and often being denied by Apple's "privacy czars" who ensure Apple doesn't collect information they don't [need], that information is used only [in] ways the user allows, and to design the systems to keep user data separate. This has lead to many conflicts, especially for the Siri and iAd team who often cannot access [the] user data they need. Of course, Apple can do this because unlike Google, Facebook or [Amazon], Apple makes money on hardware and not on the sale of customer data.

An anonymous reader writes: Barack Obama descended on Cuba with a pomp unmatched by the Pope on Sunday, becoming the first American president to visit Cuba in nearly a century, and the first since a revolution led by Fidel Castro toppled a U.S.-backed strongman in 1959. As he arrived, Obama used a Cuban phrase meaning "what's up?" when he tweeted: "Que bola Cuba? Just touched down here, looking forward to meeting and hearing directly from the Cuban people." "This is a historic visit," Obama said as he greeted U.S. Embassy staff and their families at a Havana hotel. "It's an historic opportunity to engage with the Cuban people." One of the many results of the new diplomatic relations between the two countries is the ability for Cuban residents to become more connected to the internet. Reuters is reporting that Alphabet Inc's Google is poised to expand internet access in Cuba. "One of the things that we'll be announcing here is that Google has a deal to start setting up more Wi-Fi and broadband access on the island," Obama said in an ABC News interview that aired on Monday. The U.S. Treasury Department has even authorized San Francisco's Airbnb service to expand its home rental listings in Cuba to non-U.S. travelers.

An anonymous reader writes from an article on Reuters: In order to save money from hiring drivers, ride-hailing service Uber has shown interest in placing a large order for self-driving cars, an auto industry source said on Friday. "They wanted autonomous cars," the source, who declined to be named, said. "It seemed like they were shopping around." Earlier on Friday, Germany's Manager Magazin reported that Uber had placed an order for at least 100,000 Mercedes S-Class cars, citing sources at both companies. [The top-flight limousine does not yet have fully autonomous driving functionality.] Another source familiar with the matter said no order had been placed with Mercedes-Benz. Diamler and Uber declined to comment. Auto industry executives are wary of doing deals with newcomers from the technology and software business who threaten to upend established business models based on manufacturing and selling cars. "We don't want to end up like Nokia's handset business, which was once hugely profitable... then disappeared," a second auto industry source said about doing a deal with Uber.

The BBC reports that North Korea's military today launched a ballistic missile from that country's east coast; the missile fell into the water after a flight of about 500 miles. Reuters adds some more details, and names a different launching point. From their report: South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the missile was likely a medium-range Rodong-missile. ... The missile was launched from an area near the west coast north of the capital, Pyongyang, flying across the [peninsula] and into the sea off the east coast early Friday morning, the South's Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. CNN adds a sobering graphic indicating the projected range of North Korea's missile arsenal.

An anonymous reader writes: In its final briefing before a court showdown next week, Apple said, "The court must consider the national debate surrounding the issue of mandating a backdoor or the dangers to the security and privacy of millions of citizens. According to Apple, the government also believes the courts can order private parties "to do virtually anything the Justice Department and FBI can dream up. The Founders would be appalled." In response to the government, Apple said, "the catastrophic security implications of that threat only highlight the government's fundamental misunderstanding or reckless disregard of the technology at issue and the security risks implicated by its suggestion." According to TechCrunch, Apple made an interesting change in its strategy in the court on Tuesday. From its article, "The tone of today's filing and subsequent call was much more cold and precise. Apple got some time to consider the best way to respond and went with dissecting the FBI's technical arguments in a series of precise testimonies by its experts. Where the FBI filing last week relied on invective, Apple's this week relies on poking holes in critical sections of the FBI's technical narrative." Edward Snowden also made a remark about the hearing. He tweeted, "Today I learned that "#Apple has way better lawyers than the DOJ."

An anonymous reader writes: According to four leading security firms, some of the recent ransomware attacks against U.S. companies have been performed by hacking groups working at the behest of China's government. From the report, "Security firms Attack Research, InGuardians and G-C Partners, said they had separately investigated three other similar ransomware attacks since December. Although they cannot be positive, the companies concluded that all were the work of a known advanced threat group from China."

New submitter tlambert writes: Unknown persons stole Bangladesh Bank transfer credentials for payments via the international banking system, and then proceeded to start moving money to the Philippines and Sri Lanka. A human foiled the plot after ~$80M had been stolen with another $870M stopped, after they noticed the word 'foundation' misspelled in one of the requests. Bangladesh, meanwhile, is blaming the U.S. Federal Reserve for trusting their credentials. (Note: Bangladesh Bank isn't like Bank of America; it's the country's central bank.)