Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Google should divest Chrome (Score 1) 141

So Brave has made some manner of adblocking a core of their browser. They've also made some very questionable crypto economy a core of their browser, same with an "acceptable ads" policy and a constant string of blunders or outright attempts at scamming their users. I think what made you type this from brave is a few decimals of BAT per engagement, not any conscious choice.

Submission + - Apple Violated Antitrust Ruling, Federal Judge Finds (ground.news)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: On April 30, 2025, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland ruled that Apple willfully violated a 2021 injunction related to its App Store practices.
The violation occurred because Apple imposed new fees and policies that blocked meaningful competition for external app purchases, defying the court's original order.
The court found Apple engineered obstacles like 27% commissions on off-App Store purchases, scare screens, and static URLs to deter users from using alternative payment methods.
Judge Rogers described Apple's response as a "blatant attempt to sidestep the court's authority" and referred Apple and VP Alex Roman for potential criminal contempt after finding Roman lied under oath.
The ruling bars Apple from interfering with developers' ability to communicate alternative payment options and may lead to criminal charges, while Epic Games signals potential return of Fortnite to iOS.

Submission + - Florida's Government May Have Ignored and Withheld Data about Covid-19 Cases (tampabay.com)

Submitted by DevNull127
DevNull127 writes: Documents filed by Florida's health department now "confirm two of the core aspects" of a whistleblower complaint filed by fired data manager Rebekah Jones, the Miami Herald reported Friday. "Sworn affidavits from Department of Health leaders acknowledge Jones' often-denied claim that she was told to remove data from public access after questions from the Miami Herald."

And they also report a position statement from the department (filed August 17th) acknowledging something even morning damning. While a team of epidemiologists at the Department of Health had developed data for the state's plan to re-open — their findings were never actually incorporated into that plan.

Reached for comment, a spokesperson for governor Ron DeSantis still insisted to the Herald that "every action taken by Governor DeSantis was data-driven and deliberate."

____________________
But when the Herald requested the data, data analysis, or data model related to reopening under Florida's open records law, the governor's office responded that there were no responsive records... Secrecy was a policy. Staffers were told not to put anything about the pandemic response into writing, according to four Department of Health employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity... Emails and texts reviewed by the Herald show the governor's office worked in coordination with Department of Health "executive leadership" to micromanage everything about the department's public response to the pandemic, from information requests from the press to specific wording and color choice on the Department of Health website and data dashboard. They slow-walked responses to questions on important data points and public records, initially withholding information and data on deaths and infections at nursing homes, state prisons and schools, forcing media organizations to file or threaten lawsuits. Important information that had previously been made public was redacted from medical examiner accounts of COVID-19 fatalities.

At one point the state mischaracterized the extent of Florida's testing backlog by over 50 percent — skewing the information about how many people were getting sick each day — by excluding data from private labs, a fact that was only disclosed in response to questions from the press. Emails show that amid questions about early community spread, data on Florida's earliest potential cases — which dated back to late December 2019 — were hidden from the public by changing "date range of data that was available on the dashboard."

Department of Health staffers interviewed by the Herald described a "hyper-politicized" communications department that often seemed to be trying to match the narrative coming from Washington.
____________________

The Herald delved into the details of the department's operation. For example, the whistleblower complaint of Rebekah Jones quotes the state's deputy health secretary as telling her pointedly that "I once had a data person who said to me, 'you tell me what you want the numbers to be, and I'll make it happen.'"

Or, as Jones later described that interaction to her mother, "They want me to put misleading data up to support that dumb f***'s plan to reopen. And more people are gonna die because [of] this and that's not what I agreed to."

Last Friday the health department's Office of the Inspector General announced they'd found "reasonable cause" to open an investigation into decisions and actions by Department of Health leadership that could "represent an immediate injury to public health."

Submission + - SPAM: TikTok Gives Itself Permission To Collect Biometric Data On US Users

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A change to TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy on Wednesday introduced a new section that says the social video app “may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information” from its users’ content. This includes things like “faceprints and voiceprints,” the policy explained. Reached for comment, TikTok could not confirm what product developments necessitated the addition of biometric data to its list of disclosures about the information it automatically collects from users, but said it would ask for consent in the case such data collection practices began. The biometric data collection details were introduced in the newly added section, “Image and Audio Information,” found under the heading of “Information we collect automatically” in the policy. This is the part of TikTok’s Privacy Policy that lists the types of data the app gathers from users, which was already fairly extensive.

The first part of the new section explains that TikTok may collect information about the images and audio that are in users’ content, “such as identifying the objects and scenery that appear, the existence and location within an image of face and body features and attributes, the nature of the audio, and the text of the words spoken in your User Content.” The policy also notes this part of the data collection is for enabling “special video effects, for content moderation, for demographic classification, for content and ad recommendations, and for other non-personally-identifying operations,” it says. The more concerning part of the new section references a plan to collect biometric data. It states: "We may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information as defined under US laws, such as faceprints and voiceprints, from your User Content. Where required by law, we will seek any required permissions from you prior to any such collection."
Link to Original Source

Submission + - SPAM: Microsoft Teams Up With Voting Machine Maker to Let Voters Track Ballots

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hart InterCivic Inc., one of the largest voting machine makers in the U.S., will incorporate Microsoft’s vote-tracking system into its in-person machines, adding a layer of security that may help reduce heightened attacks on the legitimacy of U.S. election results. The program will allow people to confirm their votes were counted after they’re cast. The partnership makes Hart the first manufacturer in the U.S. to allow local voting jurisdictions to incorporate ballot-tracking software into machines, the companies said Thursday in a joint statement. The program will let voters track their choices and offer security experts using Hart’s system the opportunity to independently audit results using Microsoft’s ElectionGuard software.

The technology would not change the process for voters. In most cases, voters would still fill out their ballots the same way they did in November 2020, either using a touchscreen or by hand-marking a ballot. Once they submit their ballots, voters will receive a piece of paper with a verification or QR code, which they can i nput into their local election jurisdiction’s website to track their ballot through the tabulation process. The process is done without revealing the content of the voter’s ballot while maintaining the privacy and secrecy of their selections, according to the statement. The system will also allow third-parties, including political parties or news organizations, to write their own programs to confirm election tallies.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - SPAM: Satellites May Have Been Underestimating the Planet's Warming For Decades

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The global warming that has already taken place may be even worse than we thought. That's the takeaway from a new study that finds satellite measurements have likely been underestimating the warming of the lower levels of the atmosphere over the last 40 years. Basic physics equations govern the relationship between temperature and moisture in the air, but many measurements of temperature and moisture used in climate models diverge from this relationship, the new study finds. That means either satellite measurements of the troposphere have underestimated its temperature or overestimated its moisture, study leader Ben Santer, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, said in a statement.

"It is currently difficult to determine which interpretation is more credible," Santer said. "But our analysis reveals that several observational datasets — particularly those with the smallest values of ocean surface warming and tropospheric warming — appear to be at odds with other, independently measured complementary variables." Complementary variables are those with a physical relationship to each other. In other words, the measurements that show the least warming might also be the least reliable.
Link to Original Source

Slashdot Top Deals

One picture is worth 128K words.

Close