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Submission + - Maryland To Become First State To Tax Online Ads Sold By Facebook And Google. (npr.org)

schwit1 writes: With a pair of votes, Maryland can now claim to be a pioneer: it's the first place in the country that will impose a tax on the sale of online ads.

The House of Delegates and Senate both voted this week to override Gov. Larry Hogan's veto of a bill passed last year to levy a tax on online ads. The tax will apply to the revenue companies like Facebook and Google make from selling digital ads, and will range from 2.5% to 10% per ad, depending on the value of the company selling the ad. (The tax would only apply to companies making more than $100 million a year.)

Proponents say the new tax is simply a reflection of where the economy has gone, and an attempt to have Maryland's tax code catch up to it. The tax is expected to draw in an estimated $250 million a year to help fund an ambitious decade-long overhaul of public education in the state that's expected to cost $4 billion a year in new spending by 2030. (Hogan also vetoed that bill, and the Democrat-led General Assembly also overrode him this week.)

Still, there remains the possibility of lawsuits to stop the tax from taking effect; Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh warned last year that "there is some risk" that a court could strike down some provisions of the bill over constitutional concerns.

Submission + - Tesla Wins Lawsuit Against Whistleblower Accused of Hacks (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The US District Court of Nevada awarded Tesla a win in its lawsuit against a former employee, filed two years ago. You may recall CEO Elon Musk referred to this incident in a previously leaked email calling on employees to be "extremely vigilant." Martin Tripp, who worked at the company's Nevada Gigafactory, was accused of hacking the automaker and supplying sensitive information to unnamed third parties. Reuters reported Friday the court ruled in Tesla's favor and dismissed Tripp's motion to file another reply to the court. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but according to Reuters, the court will grant Tesla's motion to seal the case.

Submission + - DuckDuckGo Is Growing Fast (bleepingcomputer.com)

An anonymous reader writes: DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine, announced that August 2020 ended in over 2 billion total searches via its search platform. While Google remains the most popular search engine, DuckDuckGo has gained a great deal of traction in recent months as more and more users have begun to value their privacy on the internet. DuckDuckGo saw over 2 billion searches and 4 million app/extension installations, and the company also said that they have over 65 million active users. DuckDuckGo could shatter its old traffic record if the same growth trend continues. Even though DuckDuckGo is growing rapidly, it still controls less than 2 percent of all search volume in the United States. However, DuckDuckGo's growth trend has continued throughout the year, mainly due to Google and other companies' privacy scandal.

Submission + - Why passenger jets could soon be flying in formation (cnn.com)

ragnar_ianal writes: Look at the V-shaped formations of migrating ducks and scientists have long surmised that there are aeronautical efficiencies at play. Aerbus is examining this in a practical manner to see if fuel efficiency can be enhanced.

Building on test flights in 2016 with an Airbus A380 megajet and A350-900 wide-body jetliner, fello'fly hopes to demonstrate and quantify the aerodynamic efficiencies while developing in-flight operational procedures. Initial flight testing with two A350s began in March 2020. The program will be expanded next year to include the involvement of Frenchbee and SAS airlines, along with air traffic control and air navigation service providers from France, the UK, and Europe.

"It's very, very different from what the military would call formation flight. It's really nothing to do with close formation," explained Dr. Sandra Bour Schaeffer, CEO of Airbus UpNext, in an interview with CNN Travel.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin Transactions Lead To Arrest of Major Drug Dealer (techspot.com) 169

"Drug dealer caught because of BitCoin usage," writes Slashdot reader DogDude. TechSpot reports: 38-year-old French national Gal Vallerius stands accused of acting as an administrator, senior moderator, and vendor for dark web marketplace Dream Market, where visitors can purchase anything from heroin to stolen financial data. Upon arriving at Atlanta international airport on August 31, Vallerius was arrested and his laptop searched. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents allegedly discovered $500,000 of Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash on the computer, as well a Tor installation and a PGP encryption key for someone called OxyMonster...

In addition to his role with the site, agents had identified OxyMonster as a major seller of Oxycontin and crystal meth. "OxyMonster's vendor profile featured listings for Schedule II controlled substances Oxycontin and Ritalin," testified DEA agent Austin Love. "His profile listed 60 prior sales and five-star reviews from buyers. In addition, his profile stated that he ships from France to anywhere in Europe." Investigators discovered OxyMonster's real identity by tracing outgoing Bitcoin transactions from his tip jar to wallets registered to Vallerius. Agents then checked his Twitter and Instagram accounts, where they found many writing similarities, including regular use of quotation marks, double exclamation marks, and the word "cheers," as well as intermittent French posts. The evidence led to a warrant being issued for Vallerius' arrest.

U.S. investigators had been monitoring the site for nearly two years, but got their break when Vallerius flew to the U.S. for a beard-growing competition in Austin, Texas. He now faces a life sentence for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

Comment Re: Raised bar will be bypassed (Score 2) 112

Initially comparison of streams is necessary. After the watermark technique is identified it can be filtered out of a single stream in real time. A few streams can be sent to a repeater for comparison to prevent leaks by stopping when the watermark is changed. Like I said, the watermarking raises the bar but will be defeated and life will go on.

Comment Re:Who cares? (Score 1) 316

Yep, basically the only way I can see it working would be with automated group sharding. Probably not even AI needed, just a system that learn your preferences based on others who behave similar with blocking to you and would allow social predictive blocking.

Comment Re:Who cares? (Score 1) 316

It's barely profitable and the user base has stagnated. Essentially, it's just 'still around' rather than a big thing. And worse, it doesn't seem to have any idea about how to resolve the issues.

Frankly, I don't think it can and remain 'twitter'. I don't think the particular communication pattern that twitter supports is sustainable; it's essentially built to guarantee a devolution of conversation into the worst human communication forms, flamewars, bullying, etc.

Comment Re:You forget that (Score 1) 294

I think the caring (more) for women is at least partially biologically hardwired, but of course, the advantage of being human is that we don't have to obey our hard wiring when it conflicts with a reasoned ethical position.

Treating men and women when they're on the down and out could happen if we applied ourselves. But currently, as a society, we're more concerned with treating men and women equally in boardrooms, and as there are fewer women on the bottom, well... it's not an area I see getting a high priority in the near future.

Comment Re:You forget that (Score 1) 294

Oh, I understand it very well, and was active in a rare non-judgemental forum for a long time. The actual act itself is often triggered due to short term events, but people contemplating suicide have often lived with depression a long time, and among them, interest in methods is so high that most 'help' forums will outright ban any discussion of suicide or methods and/or threaten to call police on anyone discussing it. Most will have had suicidal thoughts for months or years, and looking at how to do it is a normal component of that. Many will prepare for and have a method that is at least realizable within a few days to a week.

Most are smart enough not to actually admit to it to healthcare or family, as nothing good for them, personally, will come from that, so I think it looks a lot more sudden and unresearched in many cases than it actually is.

I doubt masculinity has much to do with it; the human body is simply quite durable. If you want to be certain, it all comes down to one thing; destroying the brain, physically or by oxygen starvation. Most effective ways to do that are by necessity quite violent, and the ones that aren't are technically complicated or highly uncertain. As both men and women contemplating suicide will find that out quite quickly, the disparity must be explained by something else. And like I said, personally I think it's largely due to men being quite sure that they're not going to get any long term help, so they'd better make sure they're off permanently.

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