179949212
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'Salford council has announced an investigation into how a misconduct complaint against deputy mayor Jack Youd was removed from the email inboxes of councillors without their knowledge.
'On October 10, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) and Manchester Evening News (M.E.N) revealed that an anonymous email was sent to several councillors in January making a complaint against the deputy mayor.
'A message from a senior official at the council, seen by the LDRS and M.E.N, explained that the sender’s anonymous email address and the wording of the email ‘raised immediate concerns’ over IT security when it arrived, with the term ‘anonymous’ being associated with an ‘active hacking group’. The official’s message said the emails were removed from councillors’ inboxes in light of the security fears.'
The email alleged that the deputy mayor had had an affair with a council employee — not allowed — whilst his wife was another elected councillor...
179948876
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'The board of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power on Tuesday approved a controversial plan to convert part of the city’s largest natural gas-fired power plant into one that also can burn hydrogen.
'The hydrogen burned at Scattergood is supposed to be green, meaning it is produced by splitting water molecules through... electrolysis. Hydrogen does not emit planet-warming carbon dioxide when it is burned, unlike natural gas.
'Although burning hydrogen does not produce CO2, the high-temperature combustion process can emit nitrogen oxides, or NOx, a key component of smog.
'the approved plan contains no specifics about where the hydrogen will come from or how it will get to the site. “The green hydrogen that would supply the proposed project has not yet been identified,” the environmental report says. 'Industry experts and officials said the project will help drive the necessary hydrogen production.'
Burning hydrogen produced by 'excess' solar or wind power is a means of energy storage. The hard question is whether it's the best solution to the storage problem given that other solutions appear to be emerging that would require less infrastructure investment (think pipes to move the hydrogen to the plant and tanks to store it for later use).
179948230
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'Leading professor at Sheffield Hallam was told to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China after demands from authorities
'The decision to halt Murphy’s research appeared to come from a number of factors. Officially, the university gave two reasons: concern about the safety of staff in China, and the fact that, after being sued by a Chinese company named in one of the HKC’s reports, the university’s insurance provider said it would no longer cover work produced by the HKC for defamation risk. That lawsuit is ongoing.
'For years, the university has faced a backlash in China, and falling student numbers. In the summer of 2022, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian called the HKC – whose namesake, Lady Kennedy, has herself been hit with sanctions by Beijing because of her criticisms of China’s human rights record – a “vanguard for anti-China forces”. Around the same time, Sheffield Hallam’s websites were blocked in China. “This undoubtedly had a negative impact on recruitment in 23/24,” a university employee wrote in July 2024.'
Note the use of the GDPR law to extract the information from the university that revealed the scandal.
179869726
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'Taki Allen was approached by armed officers at Kenwood High School following football practice, who ordered him to the ground and cuffed him before realising he had no weapon.
'The school's Omnilert AI gun detection system, which uses cameras to identify potential weapons, generated an alert that was then forwarded to the school resource officer and police.
'While the student's family and local officials have expressed concern and called for a review of the system, the school superintendent defended its operation, stating it "did what it was supposed to do".
'This incident follows a previous failure of the Omnilert system in January, where it did not detect a gun used in a fatal shooting at a Nashville high school due to camera proximity issues.'
A false positive follows a catastrophic false negative. The price we pay for safety? How big a price should we pay?
179799670
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'A specific type of earthquake that can cause particularly intense shaking is more common than previously believed, some scientists say — carrying potentially profound risk for communities across California, including those in the path of the notorious San Andreas fault.'
179625598
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'Those diagnosed as small children typically have distinct genetic profile from those diagnosed later, study finds'
So there's more than one condition out there that's being diagnosed as 'autism'. This, of course, messes with the debate about causes; one version of autism may be caused by something for which the evidence is very weak overall... ;)
179615036
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'Greater Manchester Police have suspended home working privileges following an investigation into so-called "key-jamming", which can allow people to falsely appear to be working.
'Twenty-six police officers, staff and contractors are facing misconduct proceedings following the probe, the force said.
'It comes after the anti-corruption unit identified what it called "abnormal key stroke behaviour" on GMP-issued devices.
'Key-jamming can see items left on a computer keypad or the device otherwise manipulated to make someone appear to be active.'
This is why we can't have the nice things...
179332382
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'A Tennessee neo-Nazi pleaded guilty last Tuesday to a plot to use an explosive kamikaze drone to attack a Nashville electrical substation, the US Justice Department Public Affairs Office announced.
'Columbia resident Skyler Philippi in July 2024 told a “confidential human source” about how attacking interstate electrical substations would “shock the system,” later expanding in an August 2024 manifesto that he sought to attack “high tax cities or industrial areas to make the k**es lose money.”
'FBI Counterterrorism Division Assistant Director Donald Holstead said in a statement that the plan “had the potential to knock out power to thousands of American homes and to critical facilities like hospitals.”
'Just before Philippi sought to implement his plan in November, the sources participated in a Nordic ritual with Philippi, in which they recited a prayer and discussed the Norse god Odin. The neo-Nazi promised that “this is where the New Age begins” and that it was “time to do something big.”'
Fans of Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods' will be less than surprised at the appearance of Odin in this...
179270288
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'Jude Bunting KC, representing Kearney and the BBC, told a hearing on Monday: “The MI5 now confirms publicly that in 2006 and 2009 MI5 obtained communications data in relation to Vincent Kearney.”
'He said the security service accepted it had breached Kearney’s rights under article 8 and article 10 of the European convention on human rights. They relate to the right to private correspondence and the right to impart information without interference from public authorities.
'“This appears to be the first time in any tribunal proceedings in which MI5 publicly accept interference with a journalist’s communications data, and also publicly accept that they acted unlawfully in doing so,” Bunting said.
'He claimed the concessions that it accessed the journalist’s data represented “serious and sustained illegality on the part of MI5”.'
The good news is that it's come out. The bad news is that it has taken 16 years to do so. The interesting question is whether there will be any meaningful consequences for individuals within MI5; there's a nice charge of 'malfeasance in public office' which can be used to get such individuals into a criminal court. Or will the outcome be like that of when the CIA hacked the US Senate's computers, lied about it and NOTHING HAPPENED.
179214330
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'The causes of sickness could include the relatively quick acceleration of EVs compared to fuel vehicles, their regenerative braking systems and a lack of sensory triggers such as engine noise and vibrations when travelling in a car.
'Research carried out in China, a big producer of electric cars, found that EVs were associated with more severe motion sickness symptoms than fuel vehicles.'
179103070
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
As well as microplastics, they seem to release 'bisphenol B, an endocrine-disrupting chemical that acts like oestrogen when absorbed into the bodies of humans and animals.'
178916330
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'Reintroduced for environmental reasons, the beaver has made an amazing comeback in the Netherlands. Extinct in the early 19th century, it was reintroduced in 1988, and now there are an estimated 7,000 beavers roaming around.now in danger of causing serious flooding.
'But there’s a significant downside to the booming Dutch beaver population. Beavers are increasingly digging burrows and tunnels under roads, railways and – even more worryingly – in dykes. For a country where a quarter of the land sits below sea level, this is not a minor problem – especially as beavers are not exactly holding back when digging.
“We’ve found tunnels stretching up to 17 metres into a dyke. Wide enough for a grown man to fit in. That’s alarming,” says Jelmer Krom of the Rivierenland water board. Rivierenland is a region in the middle of the Netherlands, crisscrossed by big rivers, where dykes are crucial for keeping high water at bay. If a major dyke gives way, it would cause a serious flood affecting thousands of people.'
178856808
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
Showing a limited understanding of what Tor is, the article blames it for allowing paedophiles to share images...
'Millions of child predators are forming sprawling online communities on the dark web using the Tor network, where criminal behavior escalates through the sharing of child sexual abuse material, grooming strategies and normalization of exploitation, experts say. Despite repeated warnings of a growing number of predators taking advantage of it, Tor’s developers have taken no action to curb the spread of this content, critics say.
'According to experts, these anonymous communities normalise child abuse, making it more likely that participants will go on to commit contact offenses against children they can access in real life.
“People will say ‘this particular victim is what has made me want to violate my own daughter’ and things like that,” said Richardson of C3P. “There’s definitely, by their own admission, this sort of escalation, and they egg each other on in these communities.”
'"Tor has a board of directors that makes decisions surrounding this, and I don’t think they’ve ever been held to account for any of this. They’re the only people who can essentially intervene, and they refuse to do so.”
Seriously?
178672056
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
Even journalists have noticed — and some are resorting to piracy, again
'A decade and a half on from the Pirate Bay trial, the winds have begun to shift. On an unusually warm summer’s day, I sit with fellow film critics by the old city harbour, once a haven for merchants and, rumour has it, smugglers. Cold bigstrongs in hand (that’s what they call pints up here), they start venting about the “enshittification” of streaming – enshittification being the process by which platforms degrade their services and ultimately die in the pursuit of profit. Netflix now costs upwards of 199 SEK (£15), and you need more and more subscriptions to watch the same shows you used to find in one place. Most platforms now offer plans that, despite the fee, force advertisements on subscribers. Regional restrictions often compel users to use VPNs to access the full selection of available content. The average European household now spends close to €700 (£600) a year on three or more VOD subscriptions. People pay more and get less.
'A fellow film critic confides anonymously: “I never stopped pirating, and my partner also does it if he doesn’t find the precise edition he is looking for on DVD.” While some people never abandoned piracy, others admit they have recently returned – this time turning to unofficial streaming platforms. One commonly used app is legal but can, through community add-ons, channel illicit streams. “Downloading is too difficult. I don’t know where to start,” says one film viewer. “The shady streams might bombard me with ads, but at least I don’t have to worry about getting hacked or caught.”'
Personally, as a reader not a viewer, I find a few months of Netflix and my BBC iplayer access as a result of having a TV in the UK, sufficient, along with rather more DVDs than I will ever actually watch...
178614146
submission
Bruce66423 writes:
'The body running courts in England and Wales has been accused of a cover-up, after a leaked report found it took several years to react to an IT bug that caused evidence to go missing, be overwritten or appear lost.
'Sources within HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) say that as a result, judges in civil, family and tribunal courts will have made rulings on cases when evidence was incomplete.
'The internal report, leaked to the BBC, said HMCTS did not know the full extent of the data corruption, including whether or how it had impacted cases, as it had not undertaken a comprehensive investigation.
'It also found judges and lawyers had not been informed, as HMCTS management decided it would be "more likely to cause more harm than good".'
Given the relative absence of such stories from the USA, should I congratulate you for better quality software, or for being better at covering up disasters?
