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coondoggie shares a report: In a few months, the internet will be a more secure place. That's because the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has voted to go ahead with the first-ever changing of the cryptographic key that helps protect the internet's address book -- the Domain Name System (DNS). The ICANN Board at its meeting in Belgium this week, decided to proceed with its plans to change or "roll" the key for the DNS root on Oct. 11, 2018. It will mark the first time the key has been changed since it was first put in place in 2010. During its meeting ICANN spelled out the driving forces behind the need for improved DNS security that the rollover will bring. For example, the continued evolution of Internet technologies and facilities, and deployment of IoT devices and increased capacity of networks all over the world, coupled with the unfortunate lack of sufficient security in those devices and networks, attackers have increasing power to cripple Internet infrastructure, ICANN stated.

"Specifically, the growth in attack capacity risks outstripping the ability of the root server operator community to expand defensive capacity. While it remains necessary to continue to expand defensive capacity in the near-term, the long-term outlook for the traditional approach appears bleak," ICANN stated. The KSK rollover means generating a new cryptographic public and private key pair and distributing the new public component to parties who operate validating resolvers, according to ICANN. Such resolvers run software that converts typical addresses like networkworld.com into IP network addresses. Resolvers include: internet service providers, enterprise network administrators and other DNS resolver operators, DNS resolver software developers; system integrators, and hardware and software distributors who install or ship the root's "trust anchor," ICANN said.

Linus Torvalds announced on Sunday that he was sorry for how he treated the community over the years. Torvalds, 48, said he planned to make some changes to how he conducted himself, and on that part, he said he would be taking some time off from Linux kernel development work. The New Yorker has published a story on Torvalds today in which it notes that it reached out to Torvalds days before he made the big announcement. From the story, which may be paywalled for some readers: Torvalds's decision to step aside came after The New Yorker asked him a series of questions about his conduct for a story on complaints about his abusive behavior discouraging women from working as Linux-kernel programmers. In a response to The New Yorker, Torvalds said, "I am very proud of the Linux code that I invented and the impact it has had on the world. I am not, however, always proud of my inability to communicate well with others -- this is a lifelong struggle for me. To anyone whose feelings I have hurt, I am deeply sorry."

Torvalds's response was conveyed by the Linux Foundation, which supports Linux and other open-source programming projects and paid Torvalds $1.6 million in annual compensation as of 2016. The foundation said that it supported his decision and has encouraged women to participate but that it has little control over how Torvalds runs the coding process. "We are able to have varying degrees of impact on these outcomes in newer projects," the statement said. "Older more established efforts like the Linux kernel are much more challenging to influence."

Linux's elite developers, who are overwhelmingly male, tend to share their leader's aggressive self-confidence. There are very few women among the most prolific contributors, though the foundation and researchers estimate that roughly ten per cent of all Linux coders are women. "Everyone in tech knows about it, but Linus gets a pass," Megan Squire, a computer-science professor at Elon University, told me, referring to Torvalds's abusive behavior. "He's built up this cult of personality, this cult of importance."

According to Engadget, the California Senate has sent Governor Jerry Brown draft legislation that would require manufacturers to either have to use unique preprogrammed passwords or make you change the credentials the first time you use it. "Companies will also have to 'equip the device with a reasonable security feature or features that are appropriate to the nature and function of the device,'" reports Engadget. From the report: If Brown signs the bill into law, it will take effect at the beginning of 2020. But critics claim the wording is vague and doesn't go far enough in ensuring manufacturers don't include unsecured features. "It's like dieting, where people insist you should eat more kale, which does little to address the problem you are pigging out on potato chips," Robert Graham of Errata Security said in a blog post. "The key to dieting is not eating more but eating less." Given the huge number of connected devices available, it's also not clear how the state plans to enforce and regulate the rules.

Hackers were able to steal $60 million worth of company and user funds belonging to the Zaif Japanese cryptocurrency exchange. The breach occurred last week, but the company discovered the hack on Monday, September 17. An anonymous reader shares the report from ZDNet: Investigators are still gathering details, but Zaif said the hack took place on September 14, between 17:00 and 19:00 local time, when the attacker siphoned off three types of cryptocurrencies from the company's "hot wallets." [A "hot wallet" is a term used to describe a cryptocurrency addresses with light security measures where a cryptocurrency exchange keeps funds for immediate transactions, such as cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency or cryptocurrency-to-fiat (and vice versa) operations.] Zaif says the hacker stole Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and MonaCoin from its hot wallet, all three worth 6.7 billion Japanese yen (roughly $59.67 million) when combined. Of the 6.7 billion stolen yen, 2.2 billion yen -- 32 percent -- were Zaif funds, while 4.5 billion yen were customer funds. Zaif plans to secure a 5 billion yen loan to pay back affected customers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AT&T and Verizon are trying to convince the Federal Communications Commission that mobile broadband is good enough for Internet users who don't have access to fiber or cable services. The carriers made this claim despite the data usage and speed limitations of mobile services. In the mobile market, even "unlimited" plans can be throttled to unusable speeds after a customer uses just 25GB or so a month. Mobile carriers impose even stricter limits on phone hotspots, making it difficult to use mobile services across multiple devices in the home. The carriers ignored those limits in filings they submitted for the FCC's annual review of broadband deployment.

Amazon is planning to open 3,000 of its cashierless stores by 2021, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, planning a major push into retail as it continues to scale its online platform. CNBC: The e-commerce giant currently has three locations open in Seattle, where Amazon is headquartered, and just this past week opened a location in Chicago. Bloomberg adds: Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos sees eliminating meal-time logjams in busy cities as the best way for Amazon to reinvent the brick-and-mortar shopping experience, where most spending still occurs. But he's still experimenting with the best format: a convenience store that sells fresh prepared foods as well as a limited grocery selection similar to 7-Eleven franchises, or a place to simply pick up a quick bite to eat for people in a rush, similar to the U.K.-based chain Pret a Manger, one of the people said.

[...] Adding 3,000 convenience stores would make AmazonGo among the biggest chains in U.S. The internet giant is considering plans to have about 10 locations open by the end of this year, about 50 locations in major metro areas in 2019, and then as many as 3,000 by 2021, said the people, who requested anonymity discussing internal plans. Opening multiple locations in proximity, like it's doing in Seattle, could also help Amazon reduce costs by centralizing food production in one kitchen serving many stores. The U.S. currently has 155,000 convenience stores, with 122,500 of them combined with gas stations, according to industry group NACS. Non-fuel purchases at convenience stores totaled $233 billion in 2016, with cigarettes and other tobacco products the best-selling items.

China might be at loggerheads with the United States over trade, but it is calling for a friendlier approach to the development of artificial intelligence. From a report: Speaking at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai this week, China's vice premier, Liu He, said that AI would depend heavily on international cooperation. "We're hoping that all countries, as members of the global village, will be inclusive and support each other so that we can respond to the double-edged-sword effect of new technologies," He said through a translator. "AI represents a new era. Cross-national and cross-discipline cooperation is inevitable."

President Xi Jinping delivered a similar message in a letter presented at the same conference. Xi said that China would "share results with other countries in the field of artificial intelligence." He also called for collaboration between nations on AI topics such as ethics, law, governance, and security. This new, softer approach to artificial intelligence comes just over a year after the Chinese government announced an ambitious and aggressive AI plan. This blueprint called for Chinese AI researchers to lead the world by 2030, and for domestic companies to build an industry worth more than $150 billion. China's tech industry has already embraced machine learning and AI at an impressive rate.

Sony announced Wednesday that it will release the PlayStation Classic micro console on December 3. It will cost $100 and come with 20 built-in games. From a report: Like Nintendo's NES Classic and SNES Classic, the PlayStation Classic will come packed with a list of beloved hits from the system's original library. There will be 20 games in all, but Sony only announced five of them today: Final Fantasy 7, Jumping Flash, R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, Tekken 3 and Wild Arms. "All of the pre-loaded games will be playable in their original format," the company said in an announcement post on the PlayStation Blog. Sony plans to launch the PlayStation Classic worldwide on Dec. 3 -- the 24th anniversary of the PlayStation's release. (The PS1 debuted in Japan on Dec. 3, 1994, and Sony didn't bring it to the West until September 1995.) The retro console will retail for $99.99 in the U.S., 89.99 pound in the U.K., 99.99 euro in Europe and 9,980 yen in Japan. For that price, customers will get the system and two controllers. The gamepads are full-size replicas of the PS1's original controller, not the DualShock, so they and don't include analog sticks or vibration. As you can see in the gallery above, the gamepads are wired USB devices that plug into the console in the same spot as the original system's controller ports.

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via The Guardian: People don't shout in Pontevedra -- or they shout less. With all but the most essential traffic banished, there are no revving engines or honking horns, no metallic snarl of motorbikes or the roar of people trying make themselves heard above the din -- none of the usual soundtrack of a Spanish city. What you hear in the street instead are the tweeting of birds in the camellias, the tinkle of coffee spoons and the sound of human voices. Teachers herd crocodiles of small children across town without the constant fear that one of them will stray into traffic.

"Listen," says the mayor, opening the windows of his office. From the street below rises the sound of human voices. "Before I became mayor 14,000 cars passed along this street every day. More cars passed through the city in a day than there are people living here." Miguel Anxo Fernandez Lores has been mayor of the Galician city since 1999. His philosophy is simple: owning a car doesn't give you the right to occupy the public space. "How can it be that the elderly or children aren't able to use the street because of cars?" asks Cesar Mosquera, the city's head of infrastructures. "How can it be that private property -- the car -- occupies the public space?" Lores became mayor after 12 years in opposition, and within a month had pedestrianized all 300,000 sq m of the medieval centre, paving the streets with granite flagstones. "The historical center was dead," Lores says. "There were a lot of drugs, it was full of cars -- it was a marginal zone. It was a city in decline, polluted, and there were a lot of traffic accidents. It was stagnant. Most people who had a chance to leave did so. At first we thought of improving traffic conditions but couldn't come up with a workable plan. Instead we decided to take back the public space for the residents and to do this we decided to get rid of cars."

Some of the benefits mentioned in the report include less traffic accidents and traffic-related deaths, and decreased CO2 emissions (70%). "Also, withholding planning permission for big shopping centers has meant that small businesses -- which elsewhere have been unable to withstand Spain's prolonged economic crisis -- have managed to stay afloat," reports The Guardian.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Tesla is under investigation by the Justice Department over public statements made by the company and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk. The criminal probe is running alongside a previously reported civil inquiry by securities regulators. Federal prosecutors opened a fraud investigation after Musk tweeted last month that he was contemplating taking Tesla private and had "funding secured" for the deal. The tweet initially sent the company's shares higher. Tesla confirmed it has been contacted by the Justice Department. The investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in the Northern District of California follows a subpoena issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission seeking information from the electric-car maker about Musk's plans to go private, which he has since abandoned. Tesla said in a statement following Bloomberg's report: "Last month, following Elon's announcement that he was considering taking the company private, Tesla received a voluntary request for documents from the DOJ and has been cooperative in responding to it. We have not received a subpoena, a request for testimony, or any other formal process. We respect the DOJ's desire to get information about this and believe that the matter should be quickly resolved as they review the information they have received."

Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, has been a controversial project since its debut. Critics say AMP is a Google-specific project and it is creating a walled-garden, which would only serve Google's best interests. On its part, Google has insisted that AMP's mission is to benefit the open web, and that many who contribute to AMP are non-Googlers. On Tuesday, Google announced that it would be giving up some control of how the code behind AMP is managed. A report adds: It plans to move the AMP Project to a "new governance model," which is to say that decisions about the code will be made by a committee that includes non-Googlers. Until now, final decisions about AMP's code have been made by Malte Ubl, the tech lead for the AMP Project at Google. A model with a single person in charge is not actually all that rare in open source. That person is often cheekily referred to as the BDFL, or "benevolent dictator for life." Ubl's been that person for AMP, but, he writes, "we've found that it doesn't scale to the size of the AMP Project today. Instead, we want to move to a model that explicitly gives a voice to all constituents of the community, including those who cannot contribute code themselves, such as end-users."

[...] Google has already signed up non-Google people for the Advisory Committee, which will include representatives from The Washington Post, AliExpress, eBay, Cloudflare, and Automattic (which makes WordPress). Ubl says that it will also include "advocates for an open web," including "Leonie Watson of The Paciello Group, Nicole Sullivan of Google / Chrome, and Terence Eden." Of course, as anybody who's taken part in a committee knows, it's neither a fun solution nor a guarantee that a single company or person won't dominate it. But it's a step in the right direction, and Google is encouraging people to comment on the plan at the AMP Contributor Summit on September 25th.

Rice University is "dramatically expanding" its financial aid offerings, promising full scholarships to undergrads whose families have income under $130,000. NPR reports: The school says it wants to reduce student debt -- and make it easier for students from low-income families to attend. "Talent deserves opportunity," Rice President David Leebron said while announcing the plan on Tuesday. The full scholarships are earmarked for students whose families have income between $65,000 and $130,000. Below that level, the university will not only cover tuition but also provide grants to cover students' room and board, along with any other fees. Another part of the program will help students whose family income surpasses the maximum: If their family's income is between $130,000 and $200,000, they can still get grants covering at least half of their tuition.

Saudi Arabia is investing more than $1 billion in Lucid Motors, an electric car startup that may give Tesla a run for their money. CNN reports: Lucid is planning a new high-performance electric car. It said the investment from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund announced Monday will allow it to finish engineering on its first car, the Lucid Air, as well as build a factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, and begin to sell the car by 2020. Saudi Arabia is already a big investor in Tesla. Last month Tesla CEO Elon Musk disclosed that the Saudis had taken nearly a 5% stake in his electric car company.

Musk said that the Saudis had been urging him for almost two years to take Tesla private, offering to provide funds necessary to do so. (Musk announced the plan to go private in August but quickly dropped the idea.) Saudi Arabia is investing in electric vehicles to diversify away from its dependence on oil. Lucid's Chief Technology Officer, Peter Rawlinson, was formerly a vice president and chief vehicle engineer at Tesla. He helped design the Model S, the company's breakthrough car. He left Tesla in 2012, shortly after the Model S went into production.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk revealed on Monday the identity of the passenger signed to visit the moon, set to launch on the company's Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) vehicle: Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. Mr. Maezawa, 42, is the founder of Japan's Start Today, which operates largest online clothing retailer site in the country Zozotown and Wear. The Verge adds: Maezawa, who is 42, reportedly has a real time net worth of $2.9 billion, according to Forbes. He is also an avid art collector, and spent $110.5 million on a 1982 painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat called "Untitled" last year. "Finally, I can tell you that I choose to go to the Moon!" Maezawa said at a SpaceX event, announcing his trip. This isn't the first time that SpaceX has announced it plans to send a paying customer to the Moon on one of its vehicles. In February 2017, Musk proclaimed that two individuals had each put down a "significant deposit" to fly around the Moon on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, a larger version of the Falcon 9. No details about the passengers were given, though Musk said it was "nobody from Hollywood." The flight was slated to occur before the end of this year. "Ever since I was a kid, I have loved the moon," Maezawa said in a website that his team and SpaceX created for this expedition. "This is a project that I designed and made: #dearMoon," He added, noting that it will be launched in 2023. "I choose to go to the moon with artists. In 2023, as the host, I would like to invite 6 to 8 artists from around the world to join me on this mission to the Moon." He said going to the moon can contribute to "world peace."

Mr. Musk said SpaceX's first orbital flight could be in 2-3 years, and then it would test flights without a passenger around the moon. He added, however, that as far as the proposed 2023 deadline is concerned to get the first paying passenger on the moon, he is "definitely not sure about it," as there could be some delays because of the uncertainties and complexities.

Amazon is planning to release at least 8 new voice-controlled hardware devices before the end of the year, according to CNBC. "The devices include, among others, a microwave oven, an amplifier, a receiver, a subwoofer, and an in-car gadget, people familiar with the matter said," reports CNBC. "All of the devices will be Alexa-enabled, meaning they can easily connect to the voice assistant. Some of the devices will also have Alexa built in." From the report: Amazon is expected to reveal some of these devices at an event later this month, according to an internal document describing the plans. The new devices reflect Amazon's ambition to make its Alexa voice technology ubiquitous by focusing on areas where people spend most of their time -- at home and in the car. Alexa was initially considered a geeky experiment at Amazon. Now it is now one of the most popular voice assistants, leading the growth of the burgeoning smart speaker market, which is expected to be worth $30 billion by 2024, according to Global Market Insights.

Several Xiaomi smartphone users are reporting that they are seeing ads in the Settings app of MIUI, a fork of the Android operating system that the Chinese phone maker ships on most of its smartphones. According to some users, ads started to appear at various locations -- including the lock screen -- on MIUI earlier this year. In a thread on Reddit over the weekend, a user noted that an ad has started to appear in the Settings app as well. The post, which has gleaned over 5,000 upvotes, sees plenty of users corroborate the claim.

Xiaomi, known for selling inexpensive but high-quality smartphones, is the fourth largest smartphone vendor in the world. Its handsets are immensely popular in emerging markets such as India, where it has been the largest smartphone maker for the last four quarters. In June this year, a senior executive at the company, the name of which means little rice, stated plans to enter the US market next year.

An anonymous reader quotes Digital Trends: With the launch of Chrome 69, Google stunned users last week with a surprising decision to no longer display the "www" and "m" part of the URL in the Chrome search bar, but user backlash forced Google to soften its stance. Google's course reversal, although welcomed by users, is only short term, and the search giant said it will change course once again with the release of the Chrome 70 browser....

Critics have argued that by not displaying the special-case subdomains, it was harder for users to identify sites as legitimate, and the move could lead to more scams on the internet. Others go as far as questioning Google's motives for not displaying the "www" and "m" portion of a web address, and these users speculated that the move may be to disguise Google's AMP -- or Accelerated Mobile Pages -- subdomain to make it indistinguishable for the actual domain....

With the launch of Chrome 70, Google plans on hiding the 'www' portion of a web address inside the search bar, but it will continue to display the 'm' subdomain. "We are not going to elide 'm' in M70 because we found large sites that have a user-controlled 'm' subdomain," Google Chromium product manager Emily Schecter said. "There is more community consensus that sites should not allow the 'www' subdomain to be user controlled."
ZDNet notes that while Chrome's billion-plus users were surprised, "Apple's Safari likewise hides the www and m but it hasn't caused as much concern, likely because of Google's outsized influence over the web and Chrome's dominance of the browser market."

TechRepublic quotes a community feedback post that had argued that "Lying about the hostname to novices and power users alike in the name of simplifying the UI seems imprudent from a security perspective."

SpaceX announced Thursday that it's booked the world's first private passenger to the moon. The private aerospace company said on Twitter the unnamed traveler would board its Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) to the moon, where only 24 people have ever traveled. Only 12 of those people actually walked on the moon. NBC New York reports: SpaceX didn't reveal any details about the potentially historic voyage but said it plans to reveal the traveler's identity and more on Monday, Sept. 17. The company called the plan "an important step toward enabling access for everyday people who dream of traveling to space." Musk shared the announcement on his personal page but remained tight-lipped as well. However, when asked if the passenger was him, Musk responded with an emoji of the Japanese flag.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Nintendo Switch game save data stored in the cloud is only available "as long as you have an active Nintendo Switch Online membership." If you eventually cancel the $20/year subscription, Nintendo is "unable to guarantee that cloud save data will be retained after an extended period of time from when your membership is ended." That wrinkle in Nintendo's plan was not included in the details of yesterday's Nintendo Direct presentation, but it can be found digging through the FAQs and customer support pages on Nintendo's website this morning. On the plus side, Nintendo clarified that you will be able to transfer cloud-based saves between Switch systems just by signing in with your Nintendo account on as many consoles as you want. But Nintendo also said it will continue not allowing local backups of save data to an SD card or other outside storage. UPDATE: It's worth noting that cloud saves on PlayStation systems remain accessible for six months after you cancel a paid PlayStation Plus account, while cloud saves on Xbox Live are offered for free in perpetuity.

Google built a prototype of a censored search engine for China that links users' searches to their personal phone numbers, thus making it easier for the Chinese government to monitor people's queries, The Intercept, which first published information about Google's efforts to build a censored search engine in China last month, reported Friday. From the report: The search engine, codenamed Dragonfly, was designed for Android devices, and would remove content deemed sensitive by China's ruling Communist Party regime, such as information about political dissidents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest. Previously undisclosed details about the plan, obtained by The Intercept on Friday, show that Google compiled a censorship blacklist that included terms such as "human rights," "student protest," and "Nobel Prize" in Mandarin. Leading human rights groups have criticized Dragonfly, saying that it could result in the company "directly contributing to, or [becoming] complicit in, human rights violations." A central concern expressed by the groups is that, beyond the censorship, user data stored by Google on the Chinese mainland could be accessible to Chinese authorities, who routinely target political activists and journalists. Sources familiar with the project said that prototypes of the search engine linked the search app on a user's Android smartphone with their phone number. This means individual people's searches could be easily tracked -- and any user seeking out information banned by the government could potentially be at risk of interrogation or detention if security agencies were to obtain the search records from Google.