Google Tests a News-Filled Homepage

Google is still wondering if it should make major changes to its homepage. The last experiment we saw filled the usually stark white page with info cards showing things like the weather and stocks, but this new experiment has a much bigger focus on news. From a report: Instead of a homepage featuring only the Google logo, a search box, and a few buttons, this latest experiment looks a lot more like the “Google Discover” newsfeed you get on the Google mobile app. That means rows of news articles that Google has algorithmically detected will interest you, often with wild month-to-month quality swings in the sites it promotes. To the right of the newsfeed is a stack of “at a glance” cards featuring sports scores, stocks, and the weather. The change makes Google look a lot busier — and a lot more like Bing and Yahoo.

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Source: Slashdot – Google Tests a News-Filled Homepage

Sandvine Scraps Plan To Market Tool in US That Tracks Encrypted Messages

Computer networking company Sandvine has scrapped an effort to sell US law enforcement agencies a controversial internet surveillance technology that tracks encrypted messages and laid off most of the employees involved in the initiative, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing four people with knowledge of the matter. From the report: Sandvine had pitched the new product, called “Digital Witness,” to governments and law enforcement agencies in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America. It was marketed as a tool to covertly monitor people’s internet use and encrypted messages sent using popular applications such as Meta Platform’s WhatsApp and Signal, according to the people, who asked not to be identified to discuss confidential matters.

Sandvine had already provided trial versions of the technology in the US, these people said. But a combination of broader economic woes and lingering concern over the company’s previous work with authoritarian governments hindered the product’s success, the people said. Sandvine declined to comment when asked about Digital Witness. The company’s marketing materials indicate the product is sold only to law enforcement and government agencies, and it is still listed on Sandvine’s website.

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Source: Slashdot – Sandvine Scraps Plan To Market Tool in US That Tracks Encrypted Messages

ChatGPT Is Being Used To Declassify Redacted Government Docs

Last month, OpenAI launched GPT-4 with vision (GPT-4V), allowing the chatbot to read and respond to questions about images. One of the many ways AI users are using this new feature is to decode redacted government documents on UFO sightings. “ChatGPT-4V Multimodal decodes a redacted government document on a UFO sighting released by NASA,” one tweet raves. “Maybe the truth isn’t out there; it’s right here in GPT-V.”Decrypt reports: Trying to fill gaps in a string of text is basically what LLMs do. The user did the next best thing when trying to test GPT-Vâ(TM)s capabilities and made it guess parts of a text that he censored. âoeNearly 100% intent accuracy.” he reported. Of course, it’s hard to verify whether its guess at what’s otherwise obscured is accurateâ”itâ(TM)s not like we can ask the CIA how well it did peering through the black lines. Some other ways users are utilizing GPT-4V include: deciphering a doctor’s handwriting; understanding medical images, such as X-rays, and receiving analysis and insights for specific medical cases; providing information about the nutritional content of meals or food items; assisting interior design enthusiasts by offering design suggestions based on personal preferences and images of living spaces; and proving technical analysis for stocks and cryptocurrencies based on screenshots.

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Source: Slashdot – ChatGPT Is Being Used To Declassify Redacted Government Docs

India Won't Impose Restrictions on Laptop Imports

India is rolling back its earlier plan to impose restrictions on laptop imports, months after abruptly announcing such plans which came under criticism from industry and Washington. From a report: “India will not impose restrictions on laptop imports,” Trade Secretary Sunil Barthwal told a press conference on Friday. He said the government “only wants importers to be on close watch.” The import licensing regime, announced on Aug. 3, aimed to “ensure trusted hardware and systems” enter India, but it was delayed by three months after objections from industry and criticism by Washington.

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Source: Slashdot – India Won’t Impose Restrictions on Laptop Imports

Antarctica Has Lost 7.5tn Tonnes of Ice Since 1997, Scientists Find

More than 40% of Antarctica’s ice shelves have shrunk since 1997 with almost half showing “no sign of recovery,” a study has found, linking the change to the climate breakdown. From a report: Scientists at the University of Leeds have calculated that 67tn tonnes of ice was lost in the west while 59tn tonnes was added to the east between 1997 and 2021, resulting in a net loss of 7.5tn tonnes. Warm water on the western side of Antarctica has been melting ice, whereas in the east, ice shelves have either stayed the same or grown as the water is colder there. The ice shelves sit at the end of glaciers and slow their rate of flow into the sea. When they shrink, glaciers release larger amounts of freshwater into the sea which can disrupt the currents of the Southern Ocean.

Dr Benjamin Davison, an expert in Earth observation and the study’s lead, said: “There is a mixed picture of ice-shelf deterioration, and this is to do with the ocean temperature and ocean currents around Antarctica. The western half is exposed to warm water, which can rapidly erode the ice shelves from below, whereas much of east Antarctica is currently protected from nearby warm water by a band of cold water at the coast.” Scientists measured year-by-year changes to the ice using satellites that can see through the thick cloud during long polar nights.

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Source: Slashdot – Antarctica Has Lost 7.5tn Tonnes of Ice Since 1997, Scientists Find

Video Game Cyberpunk 2077 Uses AI To Replace Deceased Voice Actor

Polish video game developer CD Projekt used AI technology in its latest release to recreate the voice of an actor who passed away, the company said. From a report: The voice of the late Milogost Reczek, a popular Polish voice actor who died in 2021, was reproduced by an AI algorithm for the Polish-language release of Phantom Liberty, the new expansion to CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077. In a statement to Bloomberg, the company said it received permission from Reczek’s family to do this and that it had considered replacing him in the expansion and rerecording his lines in the original game but decided against it.

“We didn’t like this approach,” CD Projekt localization director Mikolaj Szwed said in the statement, as Reczek “was one of the best Polish voice talents” and his performance in the game as the doctor Viktor Vektor “was stellar.” Instead, CD Projekt hired a different voice actor to perform new lines for the role and then used a Ukraine-based voice-cloning software called Respeecher to create an algorithm that would alter the dialogue to sound like Reczek. “This way we could keep his performance in the game and pay tribute to his wonderful performance as Viktor Vektor,” Szwed said.

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Source: Slashdot – Video Game Cyberpunk 2077 Uses AI To Replace Deceased Voice Actor

Canon Begins Selling Chip Machines To Rival World's Best by ASML

Canon has begun selling its nanoimprint semiconductor manufacturing systems, seeking to claw back market share by positioning the technology as a simpler and more attainable alternative to the leading-edge tools of today. From a report: The Tokyo-based company’s new chipmaking machines can produce circuits equivalent to 5-nanometer scale when using extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV), a field dominated by industry leader ASML Holding NV. Canon expects its device to reach next-generation 2nm production with further advances and improvements, it said in a statement on Friday. Like domestic peer Nikon Corp., Canon has fallen far behind ASML in the EUV race, but its nanoimprint lithography approach may help it close the gap.

Canon’s machinery may also add a new front in the US-China trade war, as the import of EUV machines — so far the only reliable method for fabricating 5nm chips and smaller — into China is prohibited by trade sanctions. The Japanese firm’s technique skips photolithography altogether and instead impresses the desired circuit pattern onto the silicon wafer. Because of its novelty, it’s unlikely to be expressly forbidden by existing trade curbs.

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Source: Slashdot – Canon Begins Selling Chip Machines To Rival World’s Best by ASML

Dimon Warns of 'Most Dangerous Time in Decades'

JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, is as close as Wall Street has to a statesman, and on Friday he sounded a major alarm about the global effects of the conflict in Israel and Gaza. From a report: “This may be the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades,” he said in a statement accompanying the bank’s quarterly earnings. He warned of “far-reaching impacts on energy and food markets, global trade and geopolitical relationships.”

For Mr. Dimon, weighing in on geopolitics isn’t new: He consistently warns of dangers from the war in Ukraine and elsewhere. On Friday, he said he was preparing the nation’s largest bank for a range of scary outcomes, with other risks including high inflation and rising interest rates. But on a call with reporters, he described the Gaza conflict as “the highest and most important thing for the Western world.” Otherwise, JPMorgan and other big banks appear to be operating smoothly. JPMorgan’s profit rose to $13.2 billion in the third quarter, a 35 percent rise from the same period last year. Executives at the bank said the tumult of the regional banking crisis of the spring, which resulted in JPMorgan taking over First Republic, was steadily fading. “U.S. consumers and businesses generally remain healthy,” Mr. Dimon said, “although, consumers are spending down their excess cash buffers.”

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Source: Slashdot – Dimon Warns of ‘Most Dangerous Time in Decades’

NASA Launches Psyche, a Mission To Explore a Metal Asteroid

Is the asteroid Psyche really a hunk of mostly metal? Is the object, which is nearly as wide as Massachusetts, the core of a baby planet whose rocky outer layers were knocked off during a cataclysmic collision in the early days of the solar system? Right now, all that astronomers can say is maybe, maybe not. NASA launched a spacecraft on Friday morning, also named Psyche, on a journey to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to find out. From a report: “We’re really going to see a kind of new object, which means that a lot of our ideas are going to be proven wrong,” said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, a professor of earth and space exploration at Arizona State University who serves as the mission’s principal investigator.

Being proven wrong, she added, “is, I think, the most exciting thing in science.” That voyage in search of answers kicked off Friday at 10:19 a.m. Eastern time. Falcon Heavy, the largest of SpaceX’s operational rockets, lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sending the massive spacecraft on a journey that will last about six years and travel billions of miles. Friday’s flight overcame early, unfavorable weather forecasts for a seemingly flawless flight. About eight minutes into the flight, the rocket’s upper stage entered a 45-minute coasting period during which it will prepare to deploy the spacecraft on its flight away from Earth. The asteroid named Psyche has long been a curious enigma. Spotted in 1852 by Annibale de Gasparis, an Italian astronomer, it is named for the Greek goddess of the soul, and it was just the 16th asteroid to be discovered. In the early observations, it was, like the other asteroids, a starlike point of light that moved in an orbit around the sun, and not much more.

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Source: Slashdot – NASA Launches Psyche, a Mission To Explore a Metal Asteroid

Equifax Scores $13.6 Million Slap on Wrist Over 2017 Mega Breach

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Equifax a smidge over $13.6 million for severe failings that put millions of consumers at risk of financial crime. From a report: The regulator branded the entire debacle “entirely preventable” — from Equifax’s failure to promptly notify regulators to the way in which it misled the public over the severity of a security breach back in 2017. The original fine should have been greater; the true sum was $19,428,836 but the company received a 30 percent discount for agreeing to the penalty early into the proceedings. It also received a 15 percent credit for good behavior during the investigation.

After first opening the investigation in 2017, the FCA’s fine comes after the ICO wasted less time imposing a penalty of $609,092 in 2018. “Cybersecurity and data protection are of growing importance to the security and stability of financial services,” said Jessica Rusu, FCA chief data, information, and intelligence officer. “Firms not only have a technical responsibility to ensure resiliency, but also an ethical responsibility in the processing of consumer information. The Consumer Duty makes it clear that firms must raise their standards.”

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Source: Slashdot – Equifax Scores .6 Million Slap on Wrist Over 2017 Mega Breach

Cisco Can't Stop Using Hard-Coded Passwords

There’s a new Cisco vulnerability in its Emergency Responder product: “This vulnerability is due to the presence of static user credentials for the root account that are typically reserved for use during development. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by using the account to log in to an affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to log in to the affected system and execute arbitrary commands as the root user.” Bruce Schneier adds: “This is not the first time Cisco products have had hard-coded passwords made public. You’d think it would learn.”

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Source: Slashdot – Cisco Can’t Stop Using Hard-Coded Passwords

Microsoft Completes $69 Billion Activision Blizzard Purchase

Microsoft completed its $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard after a nearly two-year fight with global regulators threatened to scuttle the deal. From a report: The biggest-ever acquisition in the video game industry gives the maker of Xbox consoles a more formidable position against rivals, vaulting it from fifth to third place globally, behind Tencent Holdings and Sony Group. The acquisition is a stunning turnaround after Microsoft executives underestimated the magnitude and longevity of antitrust objections, forcing the software giant to seek a three-month extension of the deal’s expiration period from Activision.

Microsoft was able to close after making alterations to its merger agreement to win over UK authorities. The US Federal Trade Commission, which lost an attempt to block the transaction in court, continues to pursue legal action in its own administrative hearing. That could still force the two companies to unwind the deal if the commission is successful. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority announced on Friday that it had approved the deal after accepting a restructuring plan involving selling some gaming rights to French publisher Ubisoft Entertainment SA. The regulator was concerned about preserving competition in the nascent market for games streamed via the cloud.

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Source: Slashdot – Microsoft Completes Billion Activision Blizzard Purchase

LabView App Abandons the Mac After Four Decades

An anonymous reader quotes a report from AppleInsider: Having been created on a Mac in the 1980s, LabView has now announced that its latest macOS update will be the final release for the platform. LabView is a visual programming language tool that lets users connect virtual measurement equipment together to input and process data. AppleInsider staffers have seen it used across a variety of industries and applications to help design a complex monitoring system, or automate a test sequence.

It’s been 40 years since Dr James Truchard and Jeff Kodosky began work on it and founded their firm, National Instruments. The first release of the software was in October 1986 where it was a Mac exclusive. In a 2019 interview, Jeff Kodosky said this was because “it was the only computer that had a 32-bit operating system, and it had the graphics we needed.” Now National Instruments has told all current users that they have released an updated Mac version — but it will be the last.

National Instruments says it will cease selling licenses for the Mac version in March 2024, and will also stop support. LabView has also been sold as a subscription and National Instruments says it will switch users to a “perpetual licesse for your continued use,” though seemingly only if specifically requested. As yet, there have been few reactions on the NI.com forums. However, one post says “This came as a shocker to us as the roadmap still indicates support.” National Instruments says LabVIEW “will continue to be available on Windows and Linux OSes.”

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Source: Slashdot – LabView App Abandons the Mac After Four Decades

Woman's Experimental Bionic Hand Passes Major Test

Ed Cara reports via Gizmodo: Scientists appear to have developed a hand prosthetic that provides much more control and comfort than those available today. In new research this week, they’ve detailed the case of a Swedish woman who has successfully worn the advanced bionic limb for years with no major issues, while experiencing significantly less pain than before. The woman, identified as Karin, suffered a farming injury that took much of her right arm below the elbow over 20 years ago. Like many amputees, Karin went on to develop phantom limb pain, which required her to take high doses of medication to manage. She also benefited little from conventional prosthetics, finding them too unwieldy to use for daily life. But several years ago, Karin became one of the first patients enrolled in the DeTOP project, an expansive research study funded by the European Union and involving dozens of scientists across Europe that’s looking to develop the next generation of bionic limbs.

Karin’s prosthesis was created by the Italian company Presilia and is nicknamed Mia Hand. It’s outfitted with state-of-art technology, including AI. And to further improve its functionality, her surgeons performed osseointegration during the attachment procedure, a process that directly fuses bone to the implant, ideally creating a stronger mechanical connection. They also implanted electrodes in her arm muscles and nerves, as well as rewired some of her nerves in the remaining part of the arm. The result is a robotic limb that’s directly connected to Karin’s neuromusculoskeletal system.

Much like a real flesh-and-blood hand, it’s controlled by Karin’s nervous system and provides sensory feedback. Her new hand can purportedly perform around 80% of the typical daily tasks that a regular limb would be able to do. And it’s substantially reduced her phantom limb pain and the need for medication. The team’s findings on Mia Hand’s initial success are published in the journal Science Robotics. Karin is one of three patients enrolled in the DeTOP project. And while it may take time for the research on these patients to reach completion, the hope is that these prosthetics can eventually become the new standard for upper limb amputees. For Karin, it’s already been a tremendous gift.

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Source: Slashdot – Woman’s Experimental Bionic Hand Passes Major Test

Best Buy Will Reportedly Stop Selling DVDs and Blu-Ray Starting Next Year

According to The Digital Bits, Best Buy will exit the physical media business as soon as the end of the first quarter of 2024. From a report: Best Buy has been phasing out DVDs from its stores, but The Digital Bits reports that Best Buy would even stop offering it on its site as well, signaling a complete break from physical media. The report noted that some studios have shifted their inventory of Blu-Ray and 4K Steelbook titles toward Amazon.

The move is another hint at the possible end of physical media as consumers gravitate towards streaming services and their extensive libraries, or digital downloads. This comes as one of the largest distributors of DVDs and Blu-Rays, Ingram Entertainment, said it was exiting the business just as Walmart is looking to take over management of Studio Distribution Services (SDS), which handles the distribution of physical media. Disney ceased selling physical media in Australia.

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Source: Slashdot – Best Buy Will Reportedly Stop Selling DVDs and Blu-Ray Starting Next Year

People Send 20 Billion Pounds of 'Invisible' E-Waste To Landfills Each Year

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Science: One e-toy for every person on Earth — that’s the staggering amount of electric trains, drones, talking dolls, R/C cars, and other children’s gadgets tossed into landfills every year. Some of what most consumers consider to be e-waste — like electronics such as computers, smartphones, TVs, and speaker systems — are usual suspects. Others, like power tools, vapes, LED accessories, USB cables, anything involving rechargeable lithium batteries and countless other similar, “nontraditional” e-waste materials, are less obviously in need of special disposal. In all, people across the world throw out roughly 9 billion kilograms (19.8 billion pounds) of e-waste commonly not recognized as such by consumers.

This “invisible e-waste” is the focal point of the sixth annual International E-Waste Day on October 14, organized by Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum. In anticipation of the event, the organization recently commissioned the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) to delve into just how much unconventional e-waste is discarded every year — and global population numbers are just some of the ways to visualize the issue.

According to UNITAR’s findings, for example, the total weight of all e-cig vapes thrown away every year roughly equals 6 Eiffel Towers. Meanwhile, the total weight of all invisible e-waste tallies up to “almost half a million 40 [metric ton] trucks,” enough to create a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam stretching approximately 3,504 miles — the distance between Rome and Nairobi. From a purely economic standpoint, nearly $10 billion in essential raw materials is literally thrown into the garbage every year. Further reading: Half a Billion Cheap Electrical Items Go To UK Landfills in a Year, Research Finds

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Source: Slashdot – People Send 20 Billion Pounds of ‘Invisible’ E-Waste To Landfills Each Year

'No Fakes Act' Wants To Protect Actors and Singers From Unauthorized AI Replicas

Emilia David reports via The Verge: A bipartisan bill seeks to create a federal law to protect actors, musicians, and other performers from unauthorized digital replicas of their faces or voices. The Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act of 2023 — or the No Fakes Act — standardizes rules around using a person’s faces, names, and voices. Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) sponsored the bill.

It prevents the “production of a digital replica without consent of the applicable individual or rights holder” unless part of a news, public affairs, sports broadcast, documentary, or biographical work. The rights would apply throughout a person’s lifetime and, for their estate, 70 years after their death. The bill includes an exception for using digital duplicates for parodies, satire, and criticism. It also excludes commercial activities like commercials as long as the advertisement is for news, a documentary, or a parody. Individuals, as well as entities like a deceased person’s estate or a record label, can file for civil action based on the proposed rules. The bill also explicitly states that a disclaimer stating the digital replica was unauthorized won’t be considered an effective defense.

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Source: Slashdot – ‘No Fakes Act’ Wants To Protect Actors and Singers From Unauthorized AI Replicas

Apple AirTags Triggered 'Explosion' of Stalking Reports Nationwide, Lawsuit Says

Ashley Belanger reports via Ars Technica: This month, more than three dozen victims allegedly terrorized by stalkers using Apple AirTags have joined a class-action lawsuit filed in a California court last December against Apple. They alleged in an amended complaint (PDF) that, partly due to Apple’s negligence, AirTags have become “one of the most dangerous and frightening technologies employed by stalkers” because they can be easily, cheaply, and covertly used to determine “real-time location information to track victims.” Since the lawsuit was initially filed in 2022, plaintiffs have alleged that there has been an “explosion of reporting” showing that AirTags are frequently being used for stalking, including a spike in international AirTags stalking cases and more than 150 police reports in the US as of April 2022. More recently, there were 19 AirTags stalking cases in one US metropolitan area — Tulsa, Oklahoma — alone, the complaint said.

This seeming escalation is concerning, plaintiffs say, because Apple allegedly has not done enough to mitigate harms, and AirTags stalking can lead to financial ruin, as victims bear significant costs like hiring mechanics to strip their cars to locate AirTags or repeatedly relocating their homes. AirTags stalking can also end in violence, including murder, plaintiffs alleged, and the problem is likely bigger than anyone knows, because stalking is historically underreported. […] Many plaintiffs said they had no clue what AirTags were when they first discovered hidden AirTags were being used to monitor their moves. At the very least, plaintiffs want Apple to be responsible for raising awareness of how AirTags are used by stalkers — not just to inform people who are at risk of stalking but also to ensure law enforcement is aware. Plaintiffs have alleged that Apple did not provide information to police that prevented them from accessing protective orders and pressing criminal charges. The complaint also suggested other remedies Apple could provide, like improving the consistency of AirTag alerts, which plaintiffs claimed only sometimes appeared on iPhones, so that users are always aware when an AirTag is nearby. “Apple continues to find itself in the position of reacting to the harms its product has unleashed, as opposed to prophylactically preventing those harms,” the complaint said.

A technology specialist for the National Network to End Domestic Violence, Corbin Streett, is also quoted in the complaint, pointing out that Apple’s threat model seemed to only consider risks of strangers using AirTags for unwanted stalking, not abusive partners. That’s a problem since advocacy groups like the federally funded Stalking Prevention, Awareness, & Resource Center report (PDF) that the “vast majority of stalking victims are stalked by someone they know” and “intimate partner stalkers are the most likely stalkers to approach, threaten, and harm their victims.” “I hope Apple keeps their learning hat on and works to figure out that piece of the puzzle,” Streett said.

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Source: Slashdot – Apple AirTags Triggered ‘Explosion’ of Stalking Reports Nationwide, Lawsuit Says

Europe Mulls Open Sourcing TETRA Emergency Services' Encryption Algorithms

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle reports via The Register: The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) may open source the proprietary encryption algorithms used to secure emergency radio communications after a public backlash over security flaws found this summer. “The ETSI Technical Committee in charge of TETRA algorithms is discussing whether to make them public,” Claire Boyer, a spokesperson for the European standards body, told The Register. The committee will discuss the issue at its next meeting on October 26, she said, adding: “If the consensus is not reached, it will go to a vote.”

TETRA is the Terrestrial Trunked Radio protocol, which is used in Europe, the UK, and other countries to secure radio communications used by government agencies, law enforcement, military and emergency services organizations. In July, a Netherlands security biz uncovered five vulnerabilities in TETRA, two deemed critical, that could allow criminals to decrypt communications, including in real-time, to inject messages, deanonymize users, or set the session key to zero for uplink interception. At the time ETSI downplayed the flaws, which it said had been fixed last October, and noted that “it’s not aware of any active exploitation of operational networks.”

At the time ETSI downplayed the flaws, which it said had been fixed last October, and noted that “it’s not aware of any active exploitation of operational networks.” It did, however, face criticism from the security community over its response to the vulnerabilities — and the proprietary nature of the encryption algorithms, which makes it more difficult for proper pentesting of the emergency network system. “This whole idea of secret encryption algorithms is crazy, old-fashioned stuff,” said security author Kim Zetter who first reported the story. “It’s very 1960s and 1970s and quaint. If you’re not publishing [intentionally] weak algorithms, I don’t know why you would keep the algorithms secret.”

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Source: Slashdot – Europe Mulls Open Sourcing TETRA Emergency Services’ Encryption Algorithms

ACT Test Scores For US Students Drop To a 30-Year Low

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: High school students’ scores on the ACT college admissions test have dropped to their lowest in more than three decades, showing a lack of student preparedness for college-level coursework, according to the nonprofit organization that administers the test. Scores have been falling for six consecutive years, but the trend accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students in the class of 2023 whose scores were reported Wednesday were in their first year of high school when the virus reached the U.S.

The average ACT composite score for U.S. students was 19.5 out of 36. Last year, the average score was 19.8. The average scores in reading, science and math all were below benchmarks the ACT says students must reach to have a high probability of success in first-year college courses. The average score in English was just above the benchmark but still declined compared to last year.

About 1.4 million students in the U.S. took the ACT this year, an increase from last year. However, the numbers have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. [Janet Godwin, chief executive officer for the nonprofit ACT] said she doesn’t believe those numbers will ever fully recover, partly because of test-optional admission policies. Of students who were tested, only 21% met benchmarks for success in college-level classes in all subjects. Research from the nonprofit shows students who meet those benchmarks have a 50% chance of earning a B or better and nearly a 75% chance of earning a C or better in corresponding courses. Further reading: Accounting Graduates Drop By Highest Percentage in Years

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Source: Slashdot – ACT Test Scores For US Students Drop To a 30-Year Low