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AI

FTC Issues Stern Warning: Biased AI May Break the Law (protocol.com) 10

The Federal Trade Commission has signaled that it's taking a hard look at bias in AI, warning businesses that selling or using such systems could constitute a violation of federal law. From a report: "The FTC Act prohibits unfair or deceptive practices," the post reads. "That would include the sale or use of -- for example -- racially biased algorithms." The post also notes that biased AI can violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. "The FCRA comes into play in certain circumstances where an algorithm is used to deny people employment, housing, credit, insurance, or other benefits," it says. "The ECOA makes it illegal for a company to use a biased algorithm that results in credit discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, or because a person receives public assistance." The post mirrors comments made by acting FTC chair Rebecca Slaughter, who recently told Protocol of her intention to ensure that FTC enforcement efforts "continue and sharpen in our long, arduous and very large national task of being anti-racist."
Government

US Unveils Plan To Protect Power Grid From Foreign Hackers (bloomberg.com) 38

The White House unveiled on Tuesday a 100-day plan intended to protect the U.S. power grid from cyber-attacks, mainly by creating a stronger relationship between U.S. national security agencies and the mostly private utilities that run the electrical system. From a report: The plan is among the first big steps toward fulfilling the Biden administration's promise to urgently improve the country's cyber defenses. The nation's power system is both highly vulnerable to hacking and a target for nation-state adversaries looking to counter the U.S. advantage in conventional military and economic power. "The United States faces a well-documented and increasing cyber threat from malicious actors seeking to disrupt the electricity Americans rely on to power our homes and businesses," Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said. Although the plan is billed as a 100-day sprint -- which includes a series of consultations between utilities and the government -- it will likely take years to fully implement, experts say. It will ask utilities to pay for and install technology to better detect hacks of the specialized computers that run the country's power systems, known as industrial control systems. The Edison Electric Institute, the trade group that represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies, praised the White House plan and the Biden administration's focus on cybersecurity. "Given the sophisticated and constantly changing threats posed by adversaries, America's electric companies remain focused on securing the industrial control systems that operate the North American energy grid," said EEI president Tom Kuhn.
The Almighty Buck

Online Retailer Newegg Accepting Dogecoin as Payment Option (yahoo.com) 32

Online electronics retailer Newegg said it is now accepting dogecoin as a method of payment. From a report: Customers will be able to complete transactions using the dogecoin held in their BitPay wallet, according to an announcement Tuesday. Newegg first began accepting payments in bitcoin in July 2014. The company is now among the first retailers to accept dogecoin as payment. Further reading: Dogecoin Rips in Meme-Fueled Frenzy on Pot-Smoking Holiday.
Earth

Missing Arctic Ice Fueled the 'Beast of the East' Winter Storm (arstechnica.com) 75

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Extreme weather has become the new normal -- whether it's precipitation, drought, wind, heat, or cold. The question of how the ever-shrinking layer of Arctic sea ice has contributed to any of these changes has prompted some lively discussion over the past few years. Researchers have proposed that a weakened jet stream driven by vanishing Arctic sea ice might play a large role in extreme winter events like the descending polar vortex that struck North America earlier this year. But the idea hasn't held up well in light of more recent evidence.

But now, researchers have identified a direct link between extreme winter weather and sea ice loss. The 2018 "Beast of the East" winter storm hit Europe with record-breaking snowfall and low temperatures. And potentially as much as 88 percent of that snowfall originated from increased evaporation of the Barents Sea.

The working hypothesis is that Arctic sea ice acts as a cap for Arctic waters, limiting evaporation. Less sea ice and warmer Arctic temperatures mean more evaporation, potentially explaining the increased severity of winter storms like the Beast of the East. Until now, it's been tough to measure direct evidence linking sea ice loss to extreme European winters, but recent advances in technology are making this a little less challenging.

Open Source

Flying On Mars Fueled With Open-Source Software (zdnet.com) 32

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: A small miracle happened at 3:31am ET on Monday morning. Ingenuity, a tiny NASA helicopter, became the first powered aircraft to fly on another planet, Mars. This engineering feat was done with Linux, open-source software, and a NASA-built program based on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) open-source F (pronounced F prime) framework. GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and his team and the JPL Ingenuity crew took a long hard look into the helicopter's code and found that "nearly 12,000 developers on GitHub contributed to Ingenuity's software via open source. And yet, much like the first image of a black hole, most of these developers are not even aware that they helped make the first Martian helicopter flight possible."

They'll know now. Friedman wrote: "Today, we want to make the invisible visible. So, we have worked with JPL to place a new Mars 2020 Helicopter Mission badge on the GitHub profile of every developer who contributed to the specific versions of any open-source projects and libraries used by Ingenuity." The developer list was created by JPL providing GitHub with a comprehensive list of every version of every open source project used by Ingenuity. GitHub could then identify all the contributors who made these projects and their dependencies. Some of those honored, such as Linux's creator Linus Torvalds, are famous developers. Many others labor in obscurity -- but now their work is being recognized.
Timothy Canham, a JPL embedded flight software engineer, notes Ingenuity's program is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 running at 2.2GHz, which is "far faster than the Mars Perseverance's rover processors," according to ZDNet. The reason this older chip was used is because it meets NASA's High-Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) radiation standards.

Canham also says the flight control software on Ingenuity runs at 500Hz. The flight software "is used to control the flight hardware and read sensors 500 times per second in order to keep the helicopter stable." Canham added: "We literally ordered parts from SparkFun [Electronics]. This is commercial hardware, but we'll test it, and if it works well, we'll use it."
News

Covid-19 Pushes India's Middle Class Toward Poverty (nytimes.com) 56

An anonymous reader shares a report: Now a second wave of Covid-19 has struck India, and the middle class dreams of tens of millions of people face even greater peril. Already, about 32 million people in India were driven into poverty by the pandemic last year, according to the Pew Research Center, accounting for a majority of the 54 million who slipped out of the middle class worldwide. The pandemic is undoing decades of progress for a country that in fits and starts has brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Already, deep structural problems and the sometimes impetuous nature of many of Mr. Modi's policies had been hindering growth. A shrinking middle class would deal lasting damage. "It's very bad news in every possible way," said Jayati Ghosh, a development economist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "It has set back our growth trajectory hugely and created much greater inequality."

The second wave presents difficult choices for India and Mr. Modi. India on Friday reported more than 216,000 new infections, another record. Lockdowns are back in some states. With work scarce, migrant workers are packing into trains and buses home as they did last year. The country's vaccination campaign has been slow, though the government has picked up the pace. Yet Mr. Modi appears unwilling to repeat last year's draconian lockdown, which left more than 100 million Indians jobless and which many economists blame for worsening the pandemic's problems. His government has also been reluctant to increase spending substantially like the United States and some other places, instead releasing a budget that would raise spending on infrastructure and in other areas but that also emphasizes cutting debt.

AI

US Banks Deploy AI To Monitor Customers, Workers Amid Tech Backlash (reuters.com) 35

Several U.S. banks have started deploying camera software that can analyze customer preferences, monitor workers and spot people sleeping near ATMs, even as they remain wary about possible backlash over increased surveillance, Reuters reported Monday, citing more than a dozen banking and technology sources. From the report: Previously unreported trials at City National Bank of Florida and JPMorgan Chase & Co as well as earlier rollouts at banks such as Wells Fargo & Co offer a rare view into the potential U.S. financial institutions see in facial recognition and related artificial intelligence systems. Widespread deployment of such visual AI tools in the heavily regulated banking sector would be a significant step toward their becoming mainstream in corporate America. Bobby Dominguez, chief information security officer at City National, said smartphones that unlock via a face scan have paved the way. "We're already leveraging facial recognition on mobile," he said. "Why not leverage it in the real world?"

City National will begin facial recognition trials early next year to identify customers at teller machines and employees at branches, aiming to replace clunky and less secure authentication measures at its 31 sites, Dominguez said. Eventually, the software could spot people on government watch lists, he said. JPMorgan said it is "conducting a small test of video analytic technology with a handful of branches in Ohio." Wells Fargo said it works to prevent fraud but declined to discuss how.

Google

Google Used 'Double-Irish' To Shift $75.4 Billion in Profits Out of Ireland (irishtimes.com) 192

Google shifted more than $75.4 billion in profits out of the Republic using the controversial "double-Irish" tax arrangement in 2019, the last year in which it used the loophole. From a report: The technology giant availed of the tax arrangement to move the money out of Google Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company via interim dividends and other payments. This company was incorporated in Ireland but tax domiciled in Bermuda at the time of the transfer.

The move allowed Google Ireland Holdings to escape corporation tax both in the Republic and in the United States where its ultimate parent, Alphabet, is headquartered. The holding company reported a $13 billion pretax profit for 2019, which was effectively tax-free, the accounts show. A year earlier, Google Ireland Holdings paid out dividends of 23 billion euros, having recorded turnover of $25.7 billion. Google has used the double Irish loophole to funnel billions in global profits through Ireland and on to Bermuda, effectively putting them beyond the reach of US tax authorities. Companies exploiting the double Irish put their intellectual property into an Irish-registered company that is controlled from a tax haven such as Bermuda.

United States

Apple Will Let Parler Back on the App Store (cnn.com) 115

Apple has approved Parler's return to the iOS app store following improvements the social media company made to better detect and moderate hate speech and incitement, according to a letter the iPhone maker sent to Congress on Monday. From a report: The decision clears the way for Parler, an app popular with conservatives including some members of the far right, to be downloaded once again on Apple devices. The letter -- addressed to Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Ken Buck and obtained by CNN -- explained that since the app was removed from Apple's platform in January for violations of its policies, Parler "has proposed updates to its app and the app's content moderation practices." On April 14, Apple's app review team told Parler that its proposed changes were sufficient, the letter continued. Now, all Parler needs to do is to flip the switch. "Apple anticipates that the updated Parler app will become available immediately upon Parler releasing it," Apple's letter said. Parler, an alternative to Facebook and Twitter that bills itself as a haven for free speech, was removed from major tech platforms in early January following the US Capitol riots of Jan. 6.
United Kingdom

UK Invokes National Security To Probe Nvidia's ARM Deal (reuters.com) 27

The UK government will look into the national security implications of U.S. group Nvidia's purchase of British chip designer ARM, it said on Monday, putting a question mark over the $40 billion deal. From a report: Digital minister Oliver Dowden said on Monday he had issued a so-called "intervention notice" over the sale of ARM by Japan's SoftBank to Nvidia. "As a next step and to help me gather the relevant information, the UK's independent competition authority will now prepare a report on the implications of the transaction, which will help inform any further decisions," he said. Nvidia said it did not believe the deal posed any material national security issues.
The Almighty Buck

Bitcoin, Other Cryptocurrencies Plummet This Weekend (msn.com) 193

"The mania that drove crypto assets to records as Coinbase went public last week turned on itself on the weekend," report Bloomberg — as the price of bitcoin took a big dive: The world's biggest cryptocurrency plunged as much as 15% on Sunday, just days after reaching a record of $64,869. It subsequently pared some of the losses and was trading at about $56,440 at around 8:25 a.m. in Tokyo Monday. Ether, the second-biggest token, dropped as much as 18% to below $2,000 before also paring losses. The volatility buffeted Binance Coin, XRP and Cardano too.

Dogecoin — the token started as a joke — bucked the trend and is up 7% over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

The weekend carnage came after a heady period for the industry that saw the value of all coins surge past $2.25 trillion amid a frenzy of demand for all things crypto in the runup to Coinbase's direct listing on Wednesday. The largest U.S. crypto exchange ended the week valued at $68 billion, more than the owner of the New York Stock Exchange... Dogecoin, which has limited use and no fundamentals, rallied last week to be worth about $50 billion at one point before stumbling Saturday. Demand was so brisk for the token that investors trying to trade it on Robinhood crashed the site a few times Friday, the online exchange said in a blog post.

There was also speculation Sunday in several online reports that the crypto plunge was related to concerns the U.S. Treasury may crack down on money laundering carried out through digital assets... Besides the "unsubstantiated" report of a U.S. Treasury crackdown, Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of crypto lender Nexo, said factors for the declines may have included "excess leverage, Coinbase insiders dumping equity after the direct listing and a mass outage in China's Xinjiang province hitting Bitcoin miners."

The Almighty Buck

Edward Snowden's NFT Self-Portrait Sells for $5.4 Million in Charity Auction (gizmodo.com) 28

Gizmodo reports: The latest big name to get in on the NFT craze is former intelligence contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, who on Friday auctioned off an original NFT art piece for roughly $5.4 million worth of the cryptocurrency Ether. Titled "Stay Free", it's a digital self-portrait made out of pages from a U.S. Court of Appeals decision that ruled the National Security Agency's widespread surveillance of phone records violated the law, a practice Snowden brought to light in 2013 by leaking classified NSA secrets to journalists...

The NFT sold for 2,224 Ether, worth just over $5.4 million at the time of publishing. All proceeds from this sale will go to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit that develops open-source tools for whistleblowers and works to shield journalists from state-sponsored hackers and government surveillance. Snowden has led the organization as president since 2017.

Education

What Happened After Elite Universities Made Standardized Test Scores Optional? (nytimes.com) 301

The New York Times reports: Whether college admissions have changed for the long haul remains unclear. But early data suggests that many elite universities have admitted a higher proportion of traditionally underrepresented students this year — Black, Hispanic and those who were from lower-income communities or were the first generation in their families to go to college, or some combination — than ever before... The easing of the reliance on standardized tests, which critics say often work to the advantage of more educated and affluent families who can afford tutors and test prep, was most likely the most important factor in encouraging minority applicants.

Only 46 percent of applications this year came from students who reported a test score, down from 77 percent last year, according to Common App, the not-for-profit organization that offers the application used by more than 900 schools...

Schools had been dropping the testing requirement for years, but during the pandemic a wave of 650 schools joined in. In most cases, a student with good scores could still submit them and have them considered; a student who had good grades and recommendations but fell short on test scores could leave them out. Most schools have announced that they will continue the test-optional experiment next year, as the normal rhythm of the school year is still roiled by the pandemic.

It is unclear whether the shift foretells a permanent change in how students are selected.

News

Founder of Adobe Dies at Age 81 (gizmodo.com) 95

Long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger brings the news that Charles 'Chuck' Geschke, the co-founder of Adobe, had died at the age of 81.

The company started in co-founder John Warnock's garage in 1982, and was named after the Adobe Creek which ran behind Warnock's home, offering pioneering capabilities in "What you see is what you get" (or WYSIWYG) desktop publishing.

Gizmodo reports: "This is a huge loss for the entire Adobe community and the technology industry, for whom he has been a guide and hero for decades," Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen wrote in an email to staff.

"As co-founders of Adobe, Chuck and John Warnock developed groundbreaking software that has revolutionized how people create and communicate, " he continued. "Chuck instilled a relentless drive for innovation in the company, resulting in some of the most transformative software inventions, including the ubiquitous PDF, Acrobat, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and Photoshop."

After earning a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University, Geschke met Warnock while working at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, according to the Mercury News. The two left the company in 1982 and founded Adobe to develop software. Their first product was Adobe PostScript, which Narayen lauded as "an innovative technology that provided a radical new way to print text and images on paper and sparked the desktop publishing revolution."

Open Source

Openwall Releases 'Linux Kernel Runtime Guard' 0.9.0 (linuxreviews.org) 7

Long-time Slashdot reader xiando shares news from LinuxReviews: Linux Kernel Runtime Guard (LKRG) is a security module for the Linux kernel developed by Openwall. The latest release adds compatibility with Linux kernels up to soon to be released 5.12, support for building LKRG into kernel images, support for old 32-bit x86 machines and more...

The Linux Kernel Runtime Guard is an out-of-tree kernel module you can install as a kernel module, or, with the 0.9.0 release, build into your Linux kernel. It does run-time integrity checks to detect security vulnerability exploits against the Linux kernel.

An Openwall developer also notes in the announcement that "During LKRG development and testing I've found 7 Linux kernel bugs, 4 of them have CVE numbers."

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