Jacob Knutson reports via Axios: Sensitive, highly detailed personal data for thousands of active-duty and veteran U.S. military members can be purchased for as little as one cent per name through data broker websites, according to a new study (PDF) published on Monday by Duke University researchers. [...] The data about military personnel purchased as part of the study included full names, physical and email addresses, health and financial information and details about their ethnicity, religious practices and political affiliation. In some cases, the information also included whether the person owned or rented a home, was married or had children. The children's ages and sexes were accessible, too.

The researchers bought data on up to around 45,000 military personnel for between $0.12 to $0.32 per record. They also bought data belonging to 5,000 friends and family members of military personnel. Larger data purchases of over 1.5 million service members were available for as little as $0.01 per record from at least one broker the researchers contacted. The researchers called on Congress to pass a comprehensive privacy law and for regulatory agencies like the Federal Trade Commission to develop rules to govern military personnel data purchases.

William Gallagher reports via Appleinsider: In a move similar in principle to how the EU retrospectively sought to fine Apple over its tax agreement with Ireland, the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) is changing the company's arrangement with Cupertino. Since 1998, Apple has declared all of its online sales made in California as having taken place in Cupertino. As first spotted by the San Jose Spotlight, this means that of Apple's 7.25% sales tax, the local 1% portion goes to the city. Then under the same deal, Cupertino actually returns approximately one third of this revenue to Apple. Consequently the benefit to Apple is clear, but also Cupertino profits because it sees significantly greater sales tax revenue than it otherwise might.

"The CDTFA has done an audit of one of our big taxpayers and has identified that there are dollars being allocated improperly," Cupertino Assistant City Manager Matt Morley told the publication, "and through that audit they are asking for that process to be corrected." "The city obviously isn't happy with this and we don't believe the CDTFA is on base," continued Morley. Reportedly, the CDTFA's state tax officials have concluded that the city of Cupertino owes it $56.5 million. This is for the period from April 2021 to June 2023, though it's not clear how those dates were determined. At the same time, the tax officials are said to have decided that Apple must reimburse the state $20 million. This figure would then be reallocated to other areas of the state.

The impact on Cupertino could be significant, but the city is appealing the ruling -- and the appeal could take anywhere from seven to ten years. Even so, the Cupertino City Council has agreed to set aside the $56.5 million to prepare for the potential future loss. Should the CDTFA prevail, Cupertino's Morley said non-essential city services could be reduced or even cut. Annually, Cupertino would see a 73% drop in sales tax revenues, and would face having to cut almost a quarter of its operational costs.

The city of Washington D.C. is planning to give residents Apple AirTags to help officers track down stolen vehicles. PCMag reports: "Last week, we introduced legislation to address recent crime trends; this week, we are equipping residents with technology that will allow MPD to address these crimes, recover vehicles, and hold people accountable," D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement. "We have had success with similar programs where we make it easier for the community and MPD to work together -- from our Private Security Camera Incentive Program to the wheel lock distribution program -- and we will continue to use all the tools we have, and add new tools, to keep our city safe."

At launch, the AirTags will be available to residents in specific areas of the city that have recently seen the largest increase in vehicle thefts. To obtain the tags, residents will have to attend one of three scheduled distribution events next week where officers will install the device on the resident's cars and help them set up the tracking tag on their mobile devices. The program is currently available for residents who live in Police Service Areas 106, 501, 502, 603, 605, and 606. Check where you live on the MPD's website.

Emma Roth reports via The Verge: YouTube appears to be testing a new "play something" button on its mobile app that directs you to a random video when you don't know what to watch. As first spotted by Android Police, the prompt shows up between content as you scroll through the feed on your homepage -- but only some users are seeing it. While Android Police mentions that the button only directs users to YouTube Shorts, one of my colleagues here at The Verge found that the feature also shows them random full-length videos. It's still not clear if YouTube takes your watch history into account when picking the random videos it plays or how widely Google is rolling out this feature.

The Biden administration is proposing a ban on TCE, a highly toxic chemical commonly used in stain removers, adhesives and degreasers, and which had been found to be contaminating drinking water on a wide scale across the US. From a report: The move comes after years of mounting scientific evidence showing TCE is "extremely toxic" at low levels of exposure, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wrote in a statement. "The science is loud and clear on TCE. It is a dangerous toxic chemical and proposing to ban it will protect families, workers and communities," said the EPA deputy administrator, Janet McCabe.

TCE, or trichloroethylene, is a volatile organic compound that humans are frequently exposed to in a variety of settings, though those who use products with the chemical in an occupational setting are most at risk. It's also commonly used in carpet cleaning treatments, hoof polishes, brake cleaners, pepper spray and lubricants. Among other health issues, the chemical is thought to be a carcinogen and a liver toxin, harm male reproduction, cause neurological damage, damage kidneys and cause Parkinson's disease.

In Raleigh, North Carolina — the home of Red Hat — local newspaper the News & Observer takes an in-depth look at the "announcement that split the open source software community." (Alternate URL here.) [M]any saw Red Hat's decision to essentially paywall Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or RHEL, as sacrilegious... Red Hat employees were also conflicted about the new policy, [Red Hat Vice President Mike] McGrath acknowledged. "I think a lot of even internal associates didn't fully understand what we had announced and why," he said...

At issue, he wrote, were emerging competitors who copied Red Hat Enterprise Linux, down to even the code's mistakes, and then offered these Red Hat-replicas to customers for free. These weren't community members adding value, he contended, but undercutting rivals. And in a year when Red Hat laid off 4% of its total workforce, McGrath said, the company could not justify allowing this to continue. "I feel that while this was a difficult decision between community and business, we're still on the right side of it," he told the News & Observer. Not everyone agrees...

McGrath offered little consolation to customers who were relying on one-for-one versions of RHEL. They could stay with the downstream distributions, find another provider, or pay for Red Hat. "I think (people) were just so used to the way things work," he said. "There's a vocal group of people that probably need Red Hat's level of support, but simply don't want to pay for it. And I don't really have... there's not much we can tell them."

Since its RHEL decision, Red Hat has secured several prominent partnerships. In September, the cloud-based software company Salesforce moved 200,000 of its systems from the free CentOS Linux to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The same month, Red Hat announced RHEL would begin to support Oracle's cloud infrastructure. Oracle was one of the few major companies this summer to publicly criticize Red Hat for essentially paywalling its most popular code. On Oct. 24, Red Hat notched another win when the data security firm Cohesity said it would also ditch CentOS Linux for RHEL.
The article delves into the history of Red Hat — and of Linux — before culminating with this quote from McGrath. "I think long gone are the times of that sort of romantic view of hobbyists working in their spare time to build open source. I think there's still room for that — we still have that — but quite a lot of open source is now built from people that are paid full time."

Red Hat likes to point out that 90% of Fortune 500 companies use its services, according to the article. But it also quotes Jonathan Wright, infrastructure team lead at the nonprofit AlmaLinux, as saying that Red Hat played "fast and loose" with the GPL. The newspaper then adds that "For many open source believers, such a threat to its hallowed text isn't forgivable."