A new analysis has claimed that Apple’s device analytics contain information that can directly link information about how a device is used, its performance, features, and more, directly to a specific user, despite Apple’s claims otherwise. MacRumors reports: On Twitter, security researchers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakry have found that Apple’s device analytics data includes an ID called “dsId,” which stands for Directory Services Identifier. The analysis found that the dsId identifier is unique to every iCloud account and can be linked directly to a specific user, including their name, date of birth, email, and associated information stored on iCloud.

On Apple’s device analytics and privacy legal page, the company says no information collected from a device for analytics purposes is traceable back to a specific user. “iPhone Analytics may include details about hardware and operating system specifications, performance statistics, and data about how you use your devices and applications. None of the collected information identifies you personally,” the company claims. In one possible differentiator, Apple says that if a user agrees to send analytics information from multiple devices logged onto the same iCloud account, it may “correlate some usage data about Apple apps across those devices by syncing using end-to-end encryption.” Even in doing so, however, Apple says the user remains unidentifiable to Apple. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment.

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Source: Slashdot – Apple Device Analytics Contain Identifying iCloud User Data, Claim Security Researchers

Most addresses holding bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency, are now in the red, the first time that’s happened since the start of the coronavirus-induced crash of March 2020. CoinDesk reports: Just over 51%, or 24.6 million addresses of the total 47.9 million, are below purchase price on their investments, according to data provided by blockchain analytics firm IntoTheBlock. About 45% are in the money, which means they are boasting unrealized gains, while the rest are roughly at break-even. IntoTheBlock defines out-of-the-money addresses as those that acquired coins at an average price higher than bitcoin’s going market rate of $16,067.

The bearish momentum looks overdone, according to Lucas Outumuro, head of research at IntoTheBlock. Previous bear markets ended with the majority of addresses being out of-the money. The percentage of out-of-the-money addresses stood at 55% in January 2019. Bitcoin bottomed near $3,200 around the same time and began a bull run three months later. Further reading: Silence From Digital Currency Group’s Genesis Spooks Crypto

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Source: Slashdot – More Than 50% of Bitcoin Addresses Are Now In Loss

As the FTX fallout continues to unfold, Reason reports:

The mainstream coverage of SBF and FTX is more than a little blase… SBF was heavily involved in Democratic Party politics: In the 2022 election cycle, he was the second most prolific funder of Democratic candidates. But he wasn’t just a funder of electoral efforts. He funded both progressive and mainstream media organizations…
But SBF’s own attitude toward his funding of these causes seems to be that it’s all for show. When asked if ethics is “mostly a front”, SBF replied “yeah, that’s not all of it but it’s a lot.”
If SBF considered his generous donations to be a “front” for something else, one wonders what about the else. Is it perhaps the case that SBF thought he was actually buying goodwill and favorable coverage? He was, as it happens, the beneficiary of countless gushing magazine profiles and was frequently hailed as the “white knight” of crypto.
Indeed, SBF is still benefitting from some kinder-than-expected coverage from the mainstream media, even in the wake of the revelations about his fraudulent activities” and even from outlets that did not receive his largesse.
Read Reason’s full article here.

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Source: Slashdot – Did Sam Bankman-Fried’s Millions Buy the Media’s Loyalty?

Earlier this month, the feds arrested two Russians accused of running Z-Library — an e-book pirate site that claims to be “the world’s largest library.” Z-Library’s remaining team members have since responded by saying they are determined to keep going, promising to take the complaints of authors seriously and asking for their forgiveness. TorrentFreak reports: After the indictment was unsealed, Z-Library’s position became untenable. That led to the publishing of an official response. It confirms that part of the Z-Library team is operational but refrains from commenting on the alleged involvement of the two arrestees. “We refrain commenting on the alleged Anton and Valeria involvement in the Z-Library project and the charges against them. We are very sorry they are arrested [sic],” the announcement reads (Tor link). Z-Library does, however, realize that its site is causing trouble for authors so asks for their forgiveness. “We also regret that some authors have suffered because of Z-Library and ask for their forgiveness. We do our best to respond to all complaints about files hosted in our library if it violates authors’ rights.” The [response] suggests that Z-Library will do its best to respond to all takedown requests from authors but that doesn’t mean the site will cease operating. On the contrary, it is still up and running on the dark web, serving millions of books to registered users.

Z-Library doesn’t just respond to rightsholders. In its message, the site also addresses its users, especially those who continue to donate to the site. “We see the resonance recent events caused, we see how many people support and believe in Z-Library. Thank you for your support, it is extremely valuable to us. Thank you for each donation you make. You are the ones who making the existence of the Z-Library possible.” Donations may help to keep Z-Library afloat and that is what the site appears to aspire to. Instead of waving the white flag, it is doubling down on its goal to make knowledge freely accessible to people around the world. “We believe the knowledge and cultural heritage of mankind should be accessible to all people around the world, regardless of their wealth, social status, nationality, citizenship, etc. This is the only purpose Z-Library is made for.” This message resonates with many Z-Library users, with hundreds sending well wishes and words of support in response to the announcement […]. The problem for Z-Library is that the U.S. Department of Justice clearly disagrees with these users, and will likely do its best to ensure that the remaining members of the Z-Library team will be also held accountable.

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Source: Slashdot – Z-Library Responds to US Crackdown, Asks Authors for Forgiveness

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Amazon is going through the biggest layoffs in the company’s history right now, with a plan to eliminate some 10,000 jobs. One of the areas hit hardest is the Amazon Alexa voice assistant unit, which is apparently falling out of favor at the e-commerce giant. That’s according to a report from Business Insider, which details “the swift downfall of the voice assistant and Amazon’s larger hardware division.” Alexa has been around for 10 years and has been a trailblazing voice assistant that was copied quite a bit by Google and Apple. Alexa never managed to create an ongoing revenue stream, though, so Alexa doesn’t really make any money. The Alexa division is part of the “Worldwide Digital” group along with Amazon Prime video, and Business Insider says that division lost $3 billion in just the first quarter of 2022, with “the vast majority” of the losses blamed on Alexa. That is apparently double the losses of any other division, and the report says the hardware team is on pace to lose $10 billion this year. It sounds like Amazon is tired of burning through all that cash.

The BI report spoke with “a dozen current and former employees on the company’s hardware team,” who described “a division in crisis.” Just about every plan to monetize Alexa has failed, with one former employee calling Alexa “a colossal failure of imagination,” and “a wasted opportunity.” This month’s layoffs are the end result of years of trying to turn things around. Alexa was given a huge runway at the company, back when it was reportedly the “pet project” of former CEO Jeff Bezos. An all-hands crisis meeting took place in 2019 to try to turn the monetization problem around, but that was fruitless. By late 2019, Alexa saw a hiring freeze, and Bezos started to lose interest in the project around 2020. Of course, Amazon now has an entirely new CEO, Andy Jassy, who apparently isn’t as interested in protecting Alexa. The report says that while Alexa’s Echo line is among the “best-selling items on Amazon, most of the devices sold at cost.” One internal document described the business model by saying, “We want to make money when people use our devices, not when they buy our devices.”

That plan never really materialized, though. It’s not like Alexa plays ad breaks after you use it, so the hope was that people would buy things on Amazon via their voice. Not many people want to trust an AI with spending their money or buying an item without seeing a picture or reading reviews. The report says that by year four of the Alexa experiment, “Alexa was getting a billion interactions a week, but most of those conversations were trivial commands to play music or ask about the weather.” Those questions aren’t monetizable. Amazon also tried to partner with companies for Alexa skills, so a voice command could buy a Domino’s pizza or call an Uber, and Amazon could get a kickback. The report says: “By 2020, the team stopped posting sales targets because of the lack of use.” The team also tried to paint Alexa as a halo product with users who are more likely to spend at Amazon, even if they aren’t shopping by voice, but studies of that theory found that the “financial contribution” of those users “often fell short of expectations.”

In a public note to employees, Jassy said the company still has “conviction in pursuing” Alexa, but that’s after making huge cuts to the Alexa team. One employee told Business Insider that currently, “There’s no clear directive for devices” in the future, and that since the hardware isn’t profitable, there’s no clear incentive to keep iterating on popular products. That lack of direction led to the internally controversial $1,000 Astro robot, which is basically an Amazon Alexa on wheels. Business Insider’s tracking now puts Alexa in third place in the US voice-assistant wars, with the Google Assistant at 81.5 million users, Apple’s Siri at 77.6 million, and Alexa at 71.6 million.

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Source: Slashdot – Amazon Alexa Is a ‘Colossal Failure,’ On Pace To Lose Billion This Year

There are ongoing issues apparently affecting the iCloud for Windows app, particularly in regards to photo and video storage. According to a number of online complaints from users, iCloud for Windows is corrupting certain videos. There are also reports of a more worrying problem: photos from strangers popping up in people’s iCloud Photo library. 9to5Mac reports: MacRumors rounded up some of these complaints via complaints posted to their forums. According to an affected user, videos taken with the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro models aren’t being properly synced with iCloud for Windows. When certain videos are recorded and the synced with iCloud for Windows, they then turn “black with scan lines, rendering the videos unwatchable.”

While that problem is bad enough, some other users say they are seeing photos and even videos they do not recognize in their photo libraries. The speculation here is that these photos or videos could be from other people’s iCloud libraries, though nothing has been confirmed yet. […] These problems appear to be affecting the dedicated iCloud for Windows app itself, not the recently-launched iCloud Photos integration in Windows 11. The culprit seems to be the handoff of certain file types between the iPhone and iCloud rendering on Windows. The problem certainly appears to be a server-side issue on Apple’s side, rather than something on Microsoft’s side.

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Source: Slashdot – iCloud For Windows Users Report of Corrupted Videos, Photos From Strangers

Disney, in a shocking late Sunday announcement, said it had reappointed Iger as chief executive, effective immediately, after Iger’s hand-picked successor as CEO, Bob Chapek, came under fire for his management of the entertainment giant. CNBC reports: “It is with an incredible sense of gratitude and humility — and, I must admit, a bit of amazement — that I write to you this evening with the news that I am returning to The Walt Disney Company as Chief Executive Officer,” Iger wrote to employees in an email, which was obtained by CNBC. Shares of Disney, a Dow component, closed up more than 6% on Monday.

The dramatic upheaval comes 11 months after Iger left Disney, and days after Chapek said he planned to cut costs at the company, which had been burdened by swelling costs at its streaming service, Disney+. Earlier this month, the company’s earnings vastly underperformed Wall Street’s expectations. Even its theme park business, which reported a surge in revenue, delivered less than what analysts had projected. Iger will help the company’s board develop a new successor, Disney said in a release.

Shares of Disney have fallen about 37% so far this year. The stock hit a 52-week low Nov. 9. Iger has signed on to work as CEO for two years, Disney said Sunday, “with a mandate from the Board to set the strategic direction for renewed growth and to work closely with the Board in developing a successor to lead the Company at the completion of his term.” “We thank Bob Chapek for his service to Disney over his long career, including navigating the company through the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic,” said Susan Arnold, Disney’s board chair. She will remain in that role.

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Source: Slashdot – Bob Iger Returns As Disney CEO