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Cities: Skylines 2 gets long-awaited official mod support and map editor

Ars Technica - 26 maart 2024 - 7:53pm
 Skylines 2's Beach Properties expansion.

Enlarge / Kudos to the designer of this umbrella-shaded rooftop terrace at Colossal Order, perhaps the only worker who can imagine a place that isn't overwhelmed by Steam reviewers. (credit: Paradox Interactive)

Under the very unassuming name of patch 1.1.0f1, Cities: Skylines 2 is getting something quite big. The sequel now has the modding, map editing, and code modding support that made its predecessor such a sprawling success.

Only time will tell if community energy can help restore some of the energy that has been dispersed by the fraught launch of Cities: Skylines 2 (C:S2). The project of relatively small developer Colossal Order arrived in October 2023 with performance issues and a lack of content compared to its predecessor. Some of that content perception stemmed from the game's lack of modding support, which had contributed to entire aspects of the original game not yet available in the sequel.

When Ars interviewed Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen in December, she said that modding support was the thing she was most looking forward to arriving. Modding support was intended to be available at launch, but the challenges of building the new game's technical base, amid many other technical issues, pushed it back, along with console releases.

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Chrome launches native build for Arm-powered Windows laptops

Ars Technica - 26 maart 2024 - 6:18pm
Extreme close-up photograph of finger above Chrome icon on smartphone.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

We are quickly barreling toward an age of viable Arm-powered Windows laptops with the upcoming launch of Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite CPU. Hardware options are great, but getting useful computers out of them will require a lot of new software, and a big one has just launched: Chrome for Windows on Arm.

Google has had a nightly "canary" build running since January, but now it has a blog post up touting a production-ready version of Chrome for "Arm-compatible Windows PCs powered by Snapdragon." That's right, Qualcomm has a big hand in this release, too, with its own press announcement touting Google's browser release for its upcoming chip. Google promises a native version of Chrome will be "fully optimized for your PC’s [Arm] hardware and operating system to make browsing the web faster and smoother."

Apple upended laptop CPU architecture when it dumped Intel and launched the Arm-based Apple Silicon M1. A few years later and Qualcomm is ready to answer—mostly by buying a company full of Apple Silicon veterans—with the upcoming launch of the Snapdragon X Elite chip. Qualcomm claims the X Elite will bring Apple Silicon-class hardware to Windows, but the chip isn't out yet—it's due for a "mid-2024" release. Most of the software you'll be running will still be written in x86 and need to go through a translation layer, which will slow things down, but at least it won't have to be your primary browser.

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Bridge collapses put transportation agencies’ emergency plans to the test

Ars Technica - 26 maart 2024 - 6:12pm
The Dali container vessel after striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge that collapsed into the Patapsco River in Baltimore on March 26. The commuter bridge collapsed after being struck by a container ship, causing vehicles to plunge into the water and halting shipping traffic at one of the most important ports on the US East Coast.

Enlarge / The Dali container vessel after striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge that collapsed into the Patapsco River in Baltimore on March 26. The commuter bridge collapsed after being struck by a container ship, causing vehicles to plunge into the water and halting shipping traffic at one of the most important ports on the US East Coast. (credit: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A container ship rammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore around 1:30 am on March 26, 2024, causing a portion of the bridge to collapse into Baltimore Harbor. Officials called the event a mass casualty and were searching for people in the waters of the busy port.

This event occurred less than a year after a portion of Interstate 95 collapsed in north Philadelphia during a truck fire. That disaster was initially expected to snarl traffic for months, but a temporary six-lane roadway was constructed in 12 days to serve motorists while a permanent overpass was rebuilt.

US cities often face similar challenges when routine wear and tear, natural disasters, or major accidents damage roads and bridges. Transportation engineer Lee D. Han explains how planners, transit agencies, and city governments anticipate and manage these disruptions.

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Florida braces for lawsuits over law banning kids from social media

Ars Technica - 26 maart 2024 - 5:31pm
Florida braces for lawsuits over law banning kids from social media

Enlarge (credit: Lisa5201 | E+)

On Monday, Florida became the first state to ban kids under 14 from social media without parental permission. It appears likely that the law—considered one of the most restrictive in the US—will face significant legal challenges, however, before taking effect on January 1.

Under HB 3, apps like Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok would need to verify the ages of users, then delete any accounts for users under 14 when parental consent is not granted. Companies that "knowingly or recklessly" fail to block underage users risk fines of up to $10,000 in damages to anyone suing on behalf of child users. They could also be liable for up to $50,000 per violation in civil penalties.

In a statement, Florida governor Ron DeSantis said the "landmark law" gives "parents a greater ability to protect their children" from a variety of social media harm. Florida House Speaker Paul Renner, who spearheaded the law, explained some of that harm, saying that passing HB 3 was critical because "the Internet has become a dark alley for our children where predators target them and dangerous social media leads to higher rates of depression, self-harm, and even suicide."

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Genesis unveils its take on the big luxury EV—the Neolun Concept

Ars Technica - 26 maart 2024 - 5:07pm
The front half of the Genesis Neolum Concept EV

Enlarge / This concept points the way to a future Genesis flagship SUV. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Genesis provided train tickets from Washington to New York and accommodation so Ars could attend its event. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

NEW YORK—You can always rely on Genesis to bring at least one interesting concept to the New York International Auto Show. This year, the company brought several. At a busy reveal at the brand's Genesis House in Manhattan, it showed us its high-performance ambitions with not one but four bright orange machines, plus one rather famous Belgian racing driver. Then, in a chamber reminiscent of The Barmacide Feast, we got to see the poshest Genesis yet, the brand's take on a big luxury electric vehicle inspired by Korean hospitality.

The Neolum Concept

Genesis was tight-lipped in the lead-up to Monday night's unveilings, but no one was entirely surprised to see a big electric SUV. Genesis is owned by Hyundai Group, after all, and has access to the E-GMP architecture, a thoroughly up-to-date flexible platform that keeps impressing us. Kia just used E-GMP to great effect to make the EV9, a three-row family SUV. And Hyundai's take on that form factor is due later this year in the production Ioniq 7, so an upmarket model from Genesis seemed obvious.

"The last eight years, it was about finding who we are and then discovering DNA for the Genesis," said SangYup Lee, global design head for Genesis. "Now it's time to expand."

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Trump, the Mafioso, an ongoing saga

Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog - 26 maart 2024 - 3:16pm
He's now embracing it openly. (Thanks to Steve Sverdlik for the pointer.) Brian Leiter

Another UK university crisis brewing: University of Essex

Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog - 26 maart 2024 - 1:02pm
According to the academic staff union, the administratio has proposed "a new Academic Framework, including (among other things) a *45-week* teaching period, up to *3* entry points for students within the year, and sweeping rigid changes to module structure." Comments... Brian Leiter

Daily Telescope: A protostar with a stunning protoplanetary disc

Ars Technica - 26 maart 2024 - 1:00pm
FS Tau is a multi-star system.

Enlarge / FS Tau is a multi-star system. (credit: NASA, ESA, K. Stapelfeldt (NASA JPL), G. Kober )

Welcome to the Daily Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light, a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We'll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we're going to take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.

Good morning. It's March 26, and today's photo comes from the Hubble Space Telescope. It showcases a very young multi-star system known as FS Tau.

This star system is only about 2.8 million years old. In terms of cosmic time, that is but a blink of the eye. It lies about 450-light-years away from Earth.

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Super Mario Maker’s “final boss” was a fraud all along

Ars Technica - 26 maart 2024 - 12:00pm
When good robots fall into the wrong hands, bad things can happen...

When good robots fall into the wrong hands, bad things can happen... (credit: Aurich Lawson | Nintendo)

The Super Mario Maker community and "Team 0%" have declared victory in their years-long effort to clear every user-submitted level in the original Wii U game before the servers shut off for good on April 8. That victory declaration comes despite the fact that no human player has yet to clear "Trimming the Herbs" (TTH), the ultra-hard level that gained notoriety this month as what was thought to be the final "uncleared" level in the game.

This strange confluence of events is the result of an admission by Ahoyo, the creator of Trimming the Herbs, who came clean Friday evening regarding his use of automated, tool-assisted speedrun (TAS) methods in creating the level. That means he was able to use superhuman capabilities like slow-motion, rewinding, and frame advance to pre-record the precise set of perfectly timed inputs needed to craft the "creator clear" that was necessary to upload the level in the first place.

Ahoyo's video of a "creator clear" for Trimming the Herbs, which he now admits was created using TAS methods.

"I’m sorry for the drama [my level] caused within the community, and I regret the ordeal," Ahoyo wrote on the Team 0% Discord and social media. "But at least it was interesting. However in the end the truth matters most. Congratulations to Team 0% for their well-earned achievement!"

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What is it like to be "manic"?

Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog - 26 maart 2024 - 11:53am
Philosopher Paul Lodge discusses. (This is from a few years ago, but I only just came across this interesting essay.) Brian Leiter

The Oldest Known Photographs of India (1863–1870)

Open Culture - 26 maart 2024 - 10:00am

After about a century of indirect company rule, India became a full-fledged British colony in 1858. The consequences of this political development remain a matter of heated debate today, but one thing is certain: it made India into a natural destination for enterprising Britons. Take the aspiring clergyman turned Nottingham bank employee Samuel Bourne, who made his name as an amateur photographer with his pictures of the Lake District in the late eighteen-fifties. When those works met with a good reception at the London International Exhibition of 1862, Bourne realized that he’d found his true métier; soon thereafter, he quit the bank and set sail for Calcutta to practice it.

It was in the city of Shimla that Bourne established a proper photo studio, first with his fellow photographer William Howard, then with another named Charles Shepherd. (Bourne & Shepherd, as it was eventually named, remained in business until 2016.) Bourne traveled extensively in India, taking the pictures you can see collected in the video above, but it was his “three successive photographic expeditions to the Himalayas” that secured his place in the history of photography.

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In the last of these, “Bourne enlisted a team of eighty porters who drove a live food supply of sheep and goats and carried boxes of chemicals, glass plates, and a portable darkroom tent,” says the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When he crossed the Manirung Pass “at an elevation of 18,600 feet, Bourne succeeded in taking three views before the sky clouded over, setting a record for photography at high altitudes.”

Though he spent only six years in India, Bourne managed to take 2,200 high-quality pictures in that time, some of the oldest — and indeed, some of the finest — photographs of India and its nearby region known today.

In addition to views of the Himalayas, he captured no few architectural wonders: the Taj Mahal and the Ramnathi temple, of course, but also Raj-era creations like what was then known as the Government House in Calcutta (see below).

Colonial rule has been over for nearly eighty years now, and in that time India has grown richer in every sense, not least visually. It hardly takes an eye as keen as Bourne’s to recognize in it one of the world’s great civilizations, but a Bourne of the twenty-first century probably needs something more than a camera phone to do it justice.

Related content:

The First Photograph Ever Taken (1826)

Some of the Oldest Photos You Will Ever See: Discover Photographs of Greece, Egypt, Turkey & Other Mediterranean Lands (1840s)

The Oldest Known Photographs of Rome (1841–1871)

The Earliest Surviving Photos of Iran: Photos from 1850s-60s Capture Everything from Grand Palaces to the Ruins of Persepolis

Behold the Photographs of John Thomson, the First Western Photographer to Travel Widely Through China (1870s)

Around the World in 1896: 40 Minutes of Real Footage Lets You Visit Paris, New York, Venice, Rome, Budapest & More

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

3,000 Illustrations of Shakespeare’s Complete Works from Victorian England, Presented in a Digital Archive

Open Culture - 26 maart 2024 - 9:00am
knightcover3

“We can say of Shakespeare,” wrote T.S. Eliot—in what may sound like the most backhanded of compliments from one writer to another—“that never has a man turned so little knowledge to such great account.” Eliot, it’s true, was not overawed by the Shakespearean canon; he pronounced Hamlet “most certainly an artistic failure,” though he did love Coriolanus. Whatever we make of his ambivalent, contrarian opinions of the most famous author in the English language, we can credit Eliot for keen observation: Shakespeare’s universe, which can seem so sprawlingly vast, is actually surprisingly spare given the kinds of things it mostly contains.

Ophelia ckham18

This is due in large part to the visual limitations of the stage, but perhaps it also points toward an author who made great works of art from humble materials. Look, for example, at a search cloud of the Bard’s plays.

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You’ll find one the front page of the Victorian Illustrated Shakespeare Archive, created by Michael John Goodman, an independent researcher, writer, educator, curator and image-maker. The cloud on the left features a galaxy composed mainly of elemental and archetypal beings: “Animals,” “Castles and Palaces,” “Crowns,” “Flora and Fauna,” “Swords,” “Spears,” “Trees,” “Water,” “Woods,” “Death.” One thinks of the Zodiac or Tarot.

Roman Forum ckcor4

This particular search cloud, however, does not represent the most prominent terms in the text, but rather the most prominent images in four collections of illustrated Shakespeare plays from the Victorian period. Goodman’s site hosts over 3000 of these illustrations, taken from four major UK editions of Shakespeare’s Complete Works published in the mid-19th century. The first, published by editor Charles Knight, appeared in several volumes between 1838 and 1841, illustrated with conservative engravings by various artists. Knight’s edition introduced the trend of spelling Shakespeare’s name as “Shakspere,” as you can see in the title page to the “Comedies, Volume I,” at the top of the post. Further down, see two representative illustrations from the plays, the first of Hamlet’s Ophelia and second Coriolanus’ Roman Forum, above.

Tempest kmtemp41

Part of a wave of “early Victorian populism” in Shakespeare publishing, Knight’s edition is joined by one from Kenny Meadows, who contributed some very different illustrations to an 1854 edition. Just above, see a Goya-like illustration from The Tempest. Later came an edition illustrated by H.C. Selous in 1864, which returned to the formal, faithful realism of the Knight edition (see a rendering of Henry V, below), and includes photograuvure plates of famed actors of the time in costume and an appendix of “Special Wood Engraved Illustrations by Various Artists.”

Henry V hcseloushv4

The final edition whose illustrations Goodman has digitized and catalogued on his site features engravings by artist John Gilbert. Also published in 1864, the Gilbert may be the most expressive of the four, retaining realist proportions and mise-en-scène, yet also rendering the characters with a psychological realism that is at times unsettling—as in his fierce portrait of Lear, below. Gilbert’s illustration of The Taming of the Shrew’s Katherina and Petruchio, further down, shows his skill for creating believable individuals, rather than broad archetypes. The same skill for which the playwright has so often been given credit.

Lear

But Shakespeare worked both with rich, individual character studies and broader, archetypal, material: psychological realism and mythological classicism. What I think these illustrated editions show us is that Shakespeare, whoever he (or she) may have been, did indeed have a keen sense of what Eliot called the “objective correlative,” able to communicate complex emotions through “a skillful accumulation of imagined sensory impressions” that have impressed us as much on the canvas, stage, and screen as they do on the page. The emotional expressiveness of Shakespeare’s plays comes to us not only through eloquent verse speeches, but through images of both the starkly elemental and the uniquely personal.

Taming Of jgtos81

Spend some time with the illustrated editions on Goodman’s site, and you will develop an appreciation for how the plays communicate differently to the different artists. In addition to the search clouds, the site has a header at the top for each of the four editions. Click on the name and you will see front and back matter and title pages. In the pull-down menus, you can access each individual play’s digitized illustrations by type—“Histories,” “Comedies,” and “Tragedies.” All of the content on the site, Goodman writes, “is free through a CC license: users can share on social media, remix, research, create and just do whatever they want really!”

Update: This post originally appeared on our site in 2016. Since then, Goodman has been regularly updating the Victorian Illustrated Shakespeare Archive with more editions, giving it more richness and depth. These editions include “one published by John Tallis, which features famous actors of the time in character.” This also includes “the first ever comprehensive full-colour treatment of Shakespeare’s plays with the John Murdoch edition.” The archive, Goodman tells us, “now contains ten editions of Shakespeare’s plays and is fairly comprehensive in how people were experiencing Shakespeare, visually, in book form in the 19th Century.”

Related Content:

Take a Virtual Tour of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London

Watch Very First Film Adaptations of Shakespeare’s Plays: King John, The Tempest, Richard III & More (1899–1936)

Read All of Shakespeare’s Plays Free Online, Courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library

Folger Shakespeare Library Puts 80,000 Images of Literary Art Online, and They’re All Free to Use

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

Wat zou de toegevoegde waarde zijn van een minister van Digitale Zaken?

IusMentis - 26 maart 2024 - 8:12am

Een minister voor Digitale Zaken heeft alleen zin als deze minstens evenveel doorzettingsmacht krijgt als de minister van Financiën. Dat las ik in een opinie bij iBestuur van de bekende Bert Hubert. Toevallig kreeg ik ook een aantal vragen hierover, dus laten we eens breder kijken: wat zou het toevoegen, een speciale minister over dit onderwerp?

Het onderwerp lijkt op de agenda te zijn gezet na onder meer een oproep aan informateur Plasterk van het Adviescollege ICT-toetsing. Ik ken de oproep voor een minister van ICT of minister van digitale zaken al langer (zoals deze oproep uit 2000). De onderliggende motivatie is hetzelfde: ICT is enorm belangrijk, er moet expertise en sturing komen dus een gezaghebbende autoriteit op ministerieel niveau is dan nodig.

Mijn voornaamste bezwaar is dat ICT niet een apart ‘ding’ is, zoals Defensie los staat van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat bijvoorbeeld. ICT wordt overal gebruikt, en expertise daarover moet dus overal aanwezig zijn.

In de oproep wordt nader gemotiveerd wat de taak van zo’n minister zou moeten zijn: De minister voert rijksbreed de regie over versterking van de digitale capaciteiten van de overheid. Dit kan bijvoorbeeld door het CIO-stelsel verder te ontwikkelen, samenwerking tussen verschillende overheden te stimuleren, kaders te stellen voor ICT-projecten, het lerend vermogen van de overheid aan te jagen en kwaliteits- en financieringsnormen aan te reiken voor het onderhoud en beheer van ICT-infrastructuur. Interoperabiliteit (technische samenwerking) en coördinatie van werkzaamheden is zeker van belang, en een stevig sturend iemand kan daar zeker het verschil maken. Dat weten we uit alle mogelijke standaardisatiegroepen. Elk ministerie heeft al een Chief Information Officer (CIO), met bindende bevoegdheden. Dat zou al een heel eind moeten helpen, al lijkt dat nog wat tegen te vallen hier en daar.

Hubert ziet één mogelijke oplossing: Een minister van Digitale Zaken kan helpen, maar die moet dan wel evenveel macht hebben als de minister van Financiën. Misschien is het zelfs wel een idee de digitale minister bij dat ministerie onder te brengen, want ze zijn daar al gewend om iedereen stevig achter de broek te zitten. Want inderdaad, als er één ding is waar alle ministeries naar luisteren dan is het wel naar Financiën. Gevoelsmatig vind ik ict niet hetzelfde als het financiële, maar organisatorisch zie ik wel hoe dat zou kunnen werken. Al blijf ik zitten met “MinFin is streng, dus als we de MinICT daar stoppen dan zal deze ook als streng worden ervaren”, wat geen vanzelfsprekendheid is.

Arnoud

Het bericht Wat zou de toegevoegde waarde zijn van een minister van Digitale Zaken? verscheen eerst op Ius Mentis.

Starliner’s first commander: Don’t expect perfection on crew test flight

Ars Technica - 26 maart 2024 - 1:19am
Technicians at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida prepare Boeing's Starliner spacecraft for fueling.

Enlarge / Technicians at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida prepare Boeing's Starliner spacecraft for fueling. (credit: Boeing)

HOUSTON—While it doesn't have the same relevance to public consciousness as safety problems with commercial airliners, a successful test flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in May would be welcome news for the beleaguered aerospace company.

This will be the first time the Starliner capsule flies into low-Earth orbit with humans aboard. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are in the final stages of training for the so-called Crew Flight Test (CFT), a milestone running seven years behind the schedule Boeing said it could achieve when it won a $4.2 billion commercial crew contract from NASA a decade ago.

If schedules hold, Wilmore and Williams will take off inside Boeing's Starliner spacecraft aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket after midnight May 1, local time, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. They will fly Starliner to the International Space Station for a stay of at least eight days, then return the capsule to a parachute-assisted, airbag-cushioned landing in the western United States, likely at White Sands, New Mexico.

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Job flexibility and security linked to better mental health among workers

Ars Technica - 25 maart 2024 - 11:17pm
Job flexibility and security linked to better mental health among workers

Enlarge (credit: Office Space)

American workers who have more flexibility and security in their jobs also have better mental health, according to a study of 2021 survey data from over 18,000 nationally representative working Americans.

The study, published Monday in JAMA Network Open, may not be surprising to those who have faced return-to-office mandates and rounds of layoffs amid the pandemic. But, it offers clear data on just how important job flexibility and security are to the health and well-being of workers.

For the study, job flexibility was assessed in terms of ease of adjusting work schedules, advance notice of scheduling changes, and whether schedules were changed by employers often. People who reported greater flexibility in their job had 26 percent lower odds of serious psychological distress, which was measured on a validated, widely used questionnaire that assesses depression, nervousness, hopelessness, and worthlessness, among other forms of distress. Greater job flexibility was also linked to 13 percent lower odds of experiencing daily anxiety, 11 percent lower odds of experiencing weekly anxiety, and 9 percent lower odds of experiencing anxiety a few times a year.

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Flying coach? At least you’ll be able to watch movies on an in-seat OLED TV soon

Ars Technica - 25 maart 2024 - 9:45pm

Flying on commercial airlines today might be a lot more of a pain than it used to be, but new tech is going to bring some improvement to one part of the experience—in-flight entertainment. Panasonic Avionics' brand Astrova in-flight entertainment systems are starting to roll out on commercial flights on certain airlines, promising 4K HDR TVs and other features to the backs of seats that should be a huge upgrade over the abysmal screens we normally watch in-flight movies on.

Look at most commercial airlines today, and you'll find a tiny, terrible LCD TV embedded in the seat in front of you. These HD, standard dynamic range screens have terrible contrast and poor viewing angles, and they aren't bright enough to achieve a good viewing experience when the overhead lights are on.

They're bad enough that I always bring my own hardware for flights—most recently, I took three flights with Apple's Vision Pro headset, which I plan to write about later this week. But most people just bring a tablet.

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Justice Department indicts 7 accused in 14-year hack campaign by Chinese gov

Ars Technica - 25 maart 2024 - 9:20pm
Justice Department indicts 7 accused in 14-year hack campaign by Chinese gov

Enlarge (credit: peterschreiber.media | Getty Images)

The US Justice Department on Monday unsealed an indictment charging seven men with hacking or attempting to hack dozens of US companies in a 14-year campaign furthering economic espionage and foreign intelligence gathering by the Chinese government.

All seven defendants, federal prosecutors alleged, were associated with Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science & Technology Co., Ltd, a front company created by the Hubei State Security Department, an outpost of the Ministry of State Security located in Wuhan province. The MSS, in turn, has funded an advanced persistent threat group tracked under names including APT31, Zirconium Violet Typhoon, Judgment Panda, and Altaire.

Relentless 14-year campaign

“Since at least 2010, the defendants … engaged in computer network intrusion activity on behalf of the HSSD targeting numerous US government officials, various US economic and defense industries, and a variety of private industry officials, foreign democracy activists, academics, and parliamentarians in response to geopolitical events affecting the PRC,” federal prosecutors alleged. “These computer network intrusion activities resulted in the confirmed and potential compromise of work and personal email accounts, cloud storage accounts and telephone call records belonging to millions of Americans, including at least some information that could be released in support of malign influence targeting democratic processes and institutions, and economic plans, intellectual property, and trade secrets belonging to American businesses, and contributed to the estimated billions of dollars lost every year as a result of the PRC’s state-sponsored apparatus to transfer US technology to the PRC.”

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Mozilla’s privacy service drops a provider with ties to people-search sites

Ars Technica - 25 maart 2024 - 8:49pm
Mozilla Monitor Plus dashboard

Enlarge (credit: Mozilla)

Mozilla's Monitor Plus, a service launched by the privacy-minded tech firm in February, notes on its pitch page that there is "a $240 billion industry of data brokers selling your private information for profit" and that its offering can "take back your privacy."

Mozilla's most recent move to protect privacy has been to cut out one of the key providers of Monitor Plus' people-search protections, Onerep. That comes after reporting from security reporter Brian Krebs, who uncovered Onerep CEO and founder Dimitri Shelest as the founder of "dozens of people-search services since 2010," including one, Nuwber, that still sells the very kind of "background reports" that Monitor Plus seeks to curb.

Shelest told Krebs in a statement (PDF) that he did have an ownership stake in Nuwber, but that Nuwber has "zero cross-over or information-sharing with Onerep" and that he no longer operates any other people-search sites. Shelest admitted the bad look but said that his experience with people search gave Onerep "the best tech and team in the space."

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macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 released to fix the stuff that the 14.4 update broke

Ars Technica - 25 maart 2024 - 8:44pm
An M3 MacBook Air running macOS Sonoma.

Enlarge / An M3 MacBook Air running macOS Sonoma. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Apple has just released version 14.4.1 for macOS Sonoma, a small-but-significant patch that claims to fix several issues with third-party software and accessories that cropped up in the 14.4 update. The 14.4.1 release also includes a pair of security fixes.

Apple’s release notes highlight fixes for three major problems:

  • USB hubs connected to external displays may not be recognized
  • Copy protected Audio Unit plug-ins designed for professional music apps may not open or pass validation
  • Apps that include Java may quit unexpectedly

Users and companies began noticing problems shortly after the macOS 14.4 update was released earlier this month. Reports of broken USB hubs cropped up on Reddit, the Apple Support Communities forums, and elsewhere within the first couple of days, and issues with Java and iLok audio software DRM devices were reported later on. Some users also reported broken printer drivers and deleted file revisions in iCloud Drive, though Apple's release notes don't mention those problems.

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Where’d my results go? Google Search’s chatbot is no longer opt-in

Ars Technica - 25 maart 2024 - 8:38pm
Google's generative search results turn the normally stark-white results page into a range of pastels.

Enlarge / Google's generative search results turn the normally stark-white results page into a range of pastels. (credit: Google)

Last year Google brought its new obsession with AI-powered chatbots to Google Search with the launch of the "Search Generative Experience," or "SGE." If you opted in, SGE intercepted your Google search queries and put a giant, screen-filling generative AI chatbot response at the top of your search results. The usual 10 blue links were still there, but you had to scroll past Google's ChatGPT clone to see them. That design choice makes outgoing web links seem like a legacy escape hatch for when the chatbot doesn't work, and Google wants to know why more people haven't opted in to this.

Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land reports that Google is going to start pushing SGE out to some users, even if they haven't opted in to the "Labs experiment." A Google spokesperson told the site SGE will be turned on for a "subset of queries, on a small percentage of search traffic in the US." The report says "Google told us they want to get feedback from searchers who have not opted into SGE specifically. This way they can get feedback and learn how a more general population will find this technology helpful."

Citing his conversation with Google, Schwartz says some users automatically see Chatbot results for queries where Google thinks a chatbot "can be especially helpful." Google will turn on the feature for "queries that are often more complex or involve questions where it may be helpful to get information from a range of web pages—like 'how do I get marks off painted walls.'"

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