According to The New York Times, a secretive task force called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force is expected to release new and alarming findings that may involve vehicles made of materials not of this plant. From the report: Despite Pentagon statements that it disbanded a once-covert program to investigate unidentified flying objects, the effort remains underway -- renamed and tucked inside the Office of Naval Intelligence, where officials continue to study mystifying encounters between military pilots and unidentified aerial vehicles. Pentagon officials will not discuss the program, which is not classified but deals with classified matters. Yet it appeared last month in a Senate committee report outlining spending on the nation's intelligence agencies for the coming year. The report said the program, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, was "to standardize collection and reporting" on sightings of unexplained aerial vehicles, and was to report at least some of its findings to the public every six months. While retired officials involved with the effort -- including Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader -- hope the program will seek evidence of vehicles from other worlds, its main focus is on discovering whether another nation, especially any potential adversary, is using breakout aviation technology that could threaten the United States.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is the acting chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told a CBS affiliate in Miami this month that he was primarily concerned about reports of unidentified aircraft over U.S. military bases -- and that it was in the government's interest to find out who was responsible. He expressed concerns that China or Russia or some other adversary had made "some technological leap" that "allows them to conduct this sort of activity." Rubio said some of the unidentified aerial vehicles over U.S. bases possibly exhibited technologies not in the U.S. arsenal. But he also noted: "Maybe there is a completely, sort of, boring explanation for it. But we need to find out."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Wednesday evening, ZFS founding developer Matthew Ahrens submitted what should have been a simple, non-controversial pull request to the OpenZFS project: wherever possible without causing technical issues, the patch removed references to "slaves" and replaced them with "dependents." This patch in question doesn't change the way the code functions -- it simply changes variable names in a way that brings them in conformance with Linux upstream device-mapper terminology, in 48 total lines of code (42 removed and 48 added; with one comment block expanded slightly to be more descriptive). But this being the Internet, unfortunately, outraged naysayers descended on the pull request, and the comments were quickly closed to non-contributors. I first became aware of this as the moderator of the r/zfs subreddit where the overflow spilled once comments on the PR itself were no longer possible. "The horrible effects of human slavery continue to impact society," writes Ahrens in his pull request. "The casual use of the term 'slave' in computer software is an unnecessary reference to a painful human experience." Ahrens' pull request has been reviewed by fellow lead developers Brian Behlendorf and Ryan Moeller and merged into the OpenZFS project repository.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: A National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program that accessed American citizens' domestic phone calls and text messages resulted in only one investigation between 2015 and 2019 despite costing $100 million, a newly declassified study found. The report, which was produced by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and briefed to Congress on Tuesday, also found that the program only yielded information the FBI did not already have on two occasions during that four-year period.

"Based on one report, F.B.I. vetted an individual, but, after vetting, determined that no further action was warranted," the report said, according to The New York Times. "The second report provided unique information about a telephone number, previously known to U.S. authorities, which led to the opening of a foreign intelligence investigation." The report contains no further details of the investigation in question or its outcome. The USA Freedom Act of 2015, the law that authorized the program, is set to expire March 15, but the Trump administration has asked Congress to extend it. The House Judiciary Committee is set to consider a bill that would end the program's authorization on Wednesday.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Juul is planning to pitch federal officials on a locked version of its e-cigarettes that would bar users younger than 21 from using them. From a report: Citing sources familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Juul is preparing to present the Food and Drug Administration with a massive document laying out its commitment to curbing youth use as well as research about its products and marketing-related information. As part of these documents, Juul is reportedly planning to include a proposal for the new age-locked device. The company may submit the new device to the FDA in May, or file it as part of a submission later in 2020, the paper said.

The Journal, citing a Juul official, reported that the company will also seek approval to market its e-cigarettes as a safer alternative to cigarettes -- an assertion previously made by the company that landed it in deep shit with the FDA, as Juul did not have the necessary approval to make such a claim. Juul's presumably regretful Big Tobacco buddy Altria has reportedly been closely involved with Juul's FDA application to keep its e-cigarettes on the market.

The Metropolitan Police has announced it will use live facial recognition cameras operationally for the first time on London streets. From a report: The cameras will be in use for five to six hours at a time, with bespoke lists of suspects wanted for serious and violent crimes drawn up each time. Police say the cameras identified 70% of suspects but an independent review found much lower accuracy. Privacy campaigners said it was a "serious threat to civil liberties." Following earlier pilots in London and deployments by South Wales Police, the cameras are due to be put into action within a month. Police say they will warn local communities and consult with them in advance.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: Hospitals have granted Microsoft, IBM and Amazon the ability to access identifiable patient information under deals to crunch millions of health records, the latest examples of hospitals' growing influence in the data economy. This breadth of access wasn't always spelled out by hospitals and tech giants when the deals were struck. The scope of data sharing in these and other recently reported agreements reveals a powerful new role that hospitals play -- as brokers to technology companies racing into the $3 trillion health-care sector. Rapid digitization of health records in recent years and privacy laws enabling companies to swap patient data have positioned hospitals as a primary arbiter of how such sensitive data is shared.

Microsoft and Providence, a Renton, Wash., hospital system with data for about 20 million patient visits a year, are developing cancer algorithms by using doctor's notes in patient medical records. The notes haven't been stripped of personally identifiable information, according to Providence. And an agreement between IBM and Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Boston, to jointly develop artificial intelligence allows the hospital to share personally identifiable data for specific requests, people involved in the agreement said -- though so far the hospital hasn't done so and has no current plans to do so, according to hospital and IBM officials. Microsoft executive Peter Lee in July described how his company would use Providence patient data without identifying information for algorithm development. In a December statement, he said patients' personal health data remains in Providence's control and declined to comment further. As for Amazon, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle, granted certain AWS employees access to health information that identifies individual patients. "The Hutch, a research institution with ties to hospitals, trained and tested Amazon Web Services software designed to read medical notes," the report says. "An AWS spokeswoman said it doesn't use personally identifiable data protected under federal privacy laws to develop or improve its services."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Amazon Web Services is expecting a decision next month from a U.S. court about whether the brakes will be slammed on the Pentagon's lucrative Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract awarded to Microsoft. The filing (PDF), on January 13, sets up the schedule for key dates including February 11, when AWS and Microsoft's lawyers have agreed to expect a court to decide on AWS's motion for a temporary restraining order. A preliminary injunction is also possibly on the cards.

The significance of February -- and the reason for the sped-up negotiated schedule -- is that three days before Valentine's, the $10 billion mega-contract is supposed to begin, and, as the filing notes, "the United States has previously advised AWS and the Court [it] will begin on February 11, 2020," reiterating that "the United States' consistent position that the services to be procured under the Contract are urgently needed in support of national security." Interestingly, the U.S. -- via the Department of Defense -- said in the document that in this specific "bid protest case, it does not intend to file an answer" to AWS's complaint. Microsoft and the U.S. government have agreed to file their motions to dismiss on January 24 -- the same date AWS is flinging out its "temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction" to pull the JEDI light saber away from Microsoft. Amazon's initial formal appeal of the decision pointed much of the blame at President Trump, who has been a public critic of Amazon.

"Should it get the nod, AWS's injunction will 'prevent the issuance of substantive task orders under the contract' despite the U.S.'s position that the services 'are urgently needed in support of national security,'" reports The Register.

The social media team for a Minnesota football team playing against San Francisco's 49ers just incorporated "big tech" into its online trash talk, reports the San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate site. They call the resulting video "incredibly weird." The video in question depicts a time-lapse of [San Francisco's] Levi's stadium with two cartoon characters in the foreground that are basically team helmets with arms and legs. The 49ers character says "Welcome... to Silicon Valley" and we're then suddenly in the Matrix (?). The 49ers character pulls out a space gun that says "Big Tech" on it and starts shooting tech company logos at the Vikings character.

After slow-motion dodging Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Google Chrome, Instagram, What's App, and Uber logos a la Neo, the Viking character jump kicks the 49ers character.

The whole thing is as odd as it sounds, and even users on Reddit struggled to understand it.
The Reddit post attracted over 2,100 upvotes and 253 comments (including "Unsportsmanlike conduct, kicking opponent in the head. 15 yards penalty.")

The video has now been viewed 117,162 times over the last 18 hours -- and attracted 27,827 likes.

The Department of Homeland Security wants to expand facial recognition scans in the airport to also include citizens, which had previously been exempt from the mandatory checks. TechCrunch reports: In a filing, the department has proposed that all travelers, and not just foreign nationals or visitors, will have to complete a facial recognition check before they are allowed to enter the U.S., but also to leave the country. Facial recognition for departing flights has increased in recent years as part of Homeland Security's efforts to catch visitors and travelers who overstay their visas. The department, whose responsibility is to protect the border and control immigration, has a deadline of 2021 to roll out facial recognition scanners to the largest 20 airports in the United States, despite facing a rash of technical challenges.

But although there may not always be a clear way to opt-out of facial recognition at the airport, U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents -- also known as green card holders -- have been exempt from these checks, the existing rules say. Now, the proposed rule change to include citizens has drawn ire from one of the largest civil liberties groups in the country. "Time and again, the government told the public and members of Congress that U.S. citizens would not be required to submit to this intrusive surveillance technology as a condition of traveling," said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union. "This new notice suggests that the government is reneging on what was already an insufficient promise," he said. "Travelers, including U.S. citizens, should not have to submit to invasive biometric scans simply as a condition of exercising their constitutional right to travel. The government's insistence on hurtling forward with a large-scale deployment of this powerful surveillance technology raises profound privacy concerns," he said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report produced by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting: When an Amazon worker was killed by a forklift in a Plainfield warehouse in 2017, the state of Indiana's investigator found the company was at fault. The state cited Amazon for four major safety violations and fined it $28,000. But an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has found that, as Gov. Eric Holcomb sought to lure Amazon's HQ2 to Indiana, state labor officials quietly absolved Amazon of responsibility. After Amazon appealed, they deleted every fine that had been levied and accepted the company's argument -- that the Amazon worker was to blame.

The investigator on the case, John Stallone, had arrived at the warehouse a day after 59-year-old Phillip Lee Terry was crushed to death. He was so troubled by the pushback he was getting from higher-ups that he secretly recorded his boss, Indiana OSHA Director Julie Alexander, as she counseled the company on how to lessen the fine. He said pressure to back off came from as high up as the governor's mansion. The governor's office and Indiana labor officials declined interviews. In statements, they both called Stallone's account false. Stallone said Indiana Labor Commissioner Rick Ruble told him to back off on the Amazon case -- or resign. Stallone went on to quit and report the incident to a federal OSHA official.

"Stallone told the federal official that 'someone higher than Director Alexander' wanted the Amazon case to go away 'in the hopes it would keep Indianapolis in the running for their new HQ location,'" reports Reveal. "The governor's office denied the meeting with Stallone and the labor commissioner took place, with press secretary Rachel Hoffmeyer writing, 'The Governor never gets involved in Department of Labor cases.'"

A year after Terry's death when Indianapolis was one of 20 finalists for the Amazon headquarters deal, Indiana officials quietly signed an agreement with Amazon to delete all the safety citations and fees. "The agreement said Amazon had met the requirements of an 'unpreventable employee misconduct defense,'" reports Reveal. "The official record now essentially blames Terry for his own death." Ultimately, Amazon ended up choosing Arlington for its second headquarters.

PolygamousRanchKid brings this news from CNN: Physics centers essentially on four forces that control our known, visible universe, governing everything from the production of heat in the sun to the way your laptop works. They are gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong force.

New research may be leading us closer to one more.

Scientists at the Institute for Nuclear Research at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Atomki) have posted findings showing what could be an example of that fifth force at work. The scientists were closely watching how an excited helium atom emitted light as it decayed. The particles split at an unusual angle -- 115 degrees -- which couldn't be explained by known physics. The study's lead scientist, Attila Krasznahorkay, told CNN that this was the second time his team had detected a new particle, which they call X17, because they calculated its mass at 17 megaelectronvolts. "X17 could be a particle, which connects our visible world with the dark matter," he said in an email.

Jonathan Feng, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California at Irvine told CNN he's been following the Hungarian team's work for years, and believes its research is shaping up to be a game changer. If these results can be replicated, "this would be a no-brainer Nobel Prize," he said... They're leading us closer to what's considered the Holy Grail in physics, which Albert Einstein had pursued but never achieved. Physicists hope to create a "unified field theory," which would coherently explain all cosmic forces from the formation of galaxies down to the quirks of quarks.

Russian scientists tracking migrating eagles ran out of money after some of the birds flew to Iran and Pakistan and their SMS transmitters drew huge data roaming charges. The BBC reports: After learning of the team's dilemma, Russian mobile phone operator Megafon offered to cancel the debt and put the project on a special, cheaper tariff. The team had started crowdfunding on social media to pay off the bills. The birds left from southern Russia and Kazakhstan. The journey of one steppe eagle, called Min, was particularly expensive, as it flew to Iran from Kazakhstan. Min accumulated SMS messages to send during the summer in Kazakhstan, but it was out of range of the mobile network. Unexpectedly the eagle flew straight to Iran, where it sent the huge backlog of messages.

The price per SMS in Kazakhstan was about 15 roubles (18p; 30 US cents), but each SMS from Iran cost 49 roubles. Min used up the entire tracking budget meant for all the eagles. Megafon's offer to bail out the team, reported by RIA Novosti news, means they can continue monitoring the eagles' routes, collecting vital data to help their survival.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Here's another reminder to be wary of what you share online: BuzzFeed News noticed on Monday that the way Instagram and its owner Facebook serve up media content allows for anyone who has access to a private photo or video to root around in the HTML code and copy-paste a direct link to it.

BuzzFeed wrote: "The hack -- which works on Instagram stories as well -- requires only a rudimentary understanding of HTML and a browser. It can be done in a handful of clicks. A user simply inspects the images and videos that are being loaded on the page and then pulls out the source URL. This public URL can then be shared with people who are not logged in to Instagram or do not follow that private user. According to tests performed by BuzzFeed's Tech + News Working Group, JPEGs and MP4s from private feeds and stories can be viewed, downloaded, and shared publicly this way.
...
Because all of this data is being hosted by Facebook's own content delivery network, the work-around also applies to private Facebook content. Here's an example of such a link to a private Instagram image, per the Verge: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fscontent-lax3-1.cdninstagram.com%2Fvp%2F0907741760b14f49ebbb7d45f1e4871e%2F5E092026%2Ft51.2885-15%2Fe35%2Fs1080x1080%2F67509661_124712232143789_4496164141880255274_n.jpg%3F_nc_ht%3Dscontent-lax3-1.cdninstagram.com "

BuzzFeed is calling this a "hack," but what's really happening is Internet 101. When an authorized user loads a piece of content on Instagram in a browser, it's trivial to look in the HTML and find a direct URL to where the image or video is sitting on a server. This is not exactly uncommon for the content delivery networks (CDNs) that serve as the backbones of big websites; the simplest and least computationally expensive method of restricting unauthorized users from accessing the image or video in question is to make its URL very, very long.