WebProNews

Author: Matt Milano

  • Google CEO: ‘Things Will Go Wrong’ With Bard AI

    Google CEO: ‘Things Will Go Wrong’ With Bard AI

    Google has finally released its Bard AI to the world, albeit via a waitlist, but Google CEO Sundar Pichai is warning “things will go wrong.”

    Google’s Bard has already had a rough launch. When the company first announced it, the AI flubbed an answer to one of the questions, spooking investors and taking $100 billion off of Alphabet’s stock value. In response, Pichai asked Googlers to test Bard in an effort to improve it, leading to its public release Tuesday.

    While the release is good news for Google, Pichai is warning company employees not to expect perfection.

    “As more people start to use Bard and test its capabilities, they’ll surprise us. Things will go wrong,” Pichai wrote in an internal email to employees Tuesday viewed by CNBC. “But the user feedback is critical to improving the product and the underlying technology.”

    Pichai said Googlers “should be proud of this work and the years of tech breakthroughs that led us here, including our 2017 Transformer research and foundational models such as PalM and BERT.”

    Nonetheless, he cautioned: “Even after all this progress, we’re still in the early stages of a long Al journey.”

    “For now, I’m excited to see how Bard sparks more creativity and curiosity in the people who use it.”

  • Microsoft Brings DALL-E AI Image Creator to Bing

    Microsoft Brings DALL-E AI Image Creator to Bing

    Microsoft is continuing its transformation of Bing into an AI powerhouse, adding the DALL-E AI image creator to its Bing AI.

    OpenAI debuted DALL-E in early 2021, an AI model that can draw images based on text prompts. As OpenAI’s biggest single investor, Microsoft has access to its tech and is using it as the backbone of Bing AI.

    Microsoft is now including DALL-E as part of Bing, giving users the ability to have the AI create images for them.

    “We’re excited to announce we are bringing Bing Image Creator, new AI-powered visual Stories and updated Knowledge Cards to the new Bing and Edge preview,” writes Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President & Consumer Chief Marketing Officer. “Powered by an advanced version of the DALL∙E model from our partners at OpenAI, Bing Image Creator allows you to create an image simply by using your own words to describe the picture you want to see. Now you can generate both written and visual content in one place, from within chat.”

    The new feature will begin rolling out to users with access to the preview starting today.

    “For those in the Bing preview, Bing Image Creator will be fully integrated into the Bing chat experience, rolling out initially in Creative mode,” adds Mehdi. “By typing in a description of an image, providing additional context like location or activity, and choosing an art style, Image Creator will generate an image from your own imagination. It’s like your creative copilot. Just type something like “draw an image” or “create an image” as a prompt in chat to get creating a visual for a newsletter to friends or as inspiration for redecorating your living room.”

    Users who haven’t signed up for the preview can do so here.

  • US Agencies Request the Most User Data From Big Tech, Apple Complies the Most

    US Agencies Request the Most User Data From Big Tech, Apple Complies the Most

    Americans concerned about their user data falling into the hands of foreign governments may want to look closer to home.

    According to new research by VPN provider SurfShark, the US government makes the most requests for user data from Big Tech companies than any other jurisdiction in the world. The company analyzed data requests to Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft by “government agencies of 177 countries between 2013 and 2021.”

    The US came in first with 2,451,077 account requests, more than four times the number of Germany, the number two country on the list. In fact, the US made more requests than all of Europe, including the UK, which collectively came in under 2 million.

    While the US and EU were responsible for a combined total of 60% of all data requests, the US “made 8 times more requests than the global average (87.9/100k).”

    The number of accounts being accessed is also growing, with a five-times increase in requests from 2013 to 2021. The US alone saw a 348% increase during the time frame, and the scope and purpose of the requests are expanding.

    “Besides requesting data from technology companies, authorities are now exploring more ways to monitor and tackle crime through online services. For instance, the EU is considering a regulation that would require internet service providers to detect, report, and remove abuse-related content,” says Gabriele Kaveckyte, Privacy Counsel at Surfshark. “On one hand, introducing such new measures could help solve serious criminal cases, but civil society organizations expressed their concerns of encouraging surveillance techniques which may later be used, for example, to track down political rivals.”

    The report also sheds light on which companies comply the most versus which ones push back against requests. For all of its privacy-oriented marketing — “what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone” — Apple complies with data requests more than any other company, handing it over 82% of the time.

    In contrast, Meta complies 72% of the time, and Google does 71% of the time. Microsoft, on the other hand, pushes back the most among Big Tech companies, only handing data over 68% of the time.

    The findings may also put a dent in US efforts to ban TikTok and other foreign apps under the guise of protecting user privacy and data.

  • Google CEO Sundar Pichai Accused of Intentionally Deleting Communications

    Google CEO Sundar Pichai Accused of Intentionally Deleting Communications

    Google CEO Sundar Pichai is accused of intentionally deleting company communication in violation of US retention laws.

    Companies in the US are legally required to retain communications if they have reason to believe they may be involved in legal action. The Department of Justice has already accused Google of ‘systematically destroying’ communications related to its antitrust case. The DOJ maintains that Google intentionally had its various chat platforms set to auto-delete messages every 24 hours, despite telling US authorities that it had suspended such operation.

    The DOJ, as well as Epic Games and others, are now accusing Pichai of being involved in the deletion, effectively creating a top-down culture of hiding relevant information, according to FOSS Patents. In the latest claim, the plaintiffs make the following claim:

    “The newly produced Chats reveal a company-wide culture of concealment coming from the very top, including CEO Sundar Pichai, who is a custodian in this case. In one Chat, Mr. Pichai began discussing a substantive topic, and then immediately wrote: ‘[REDACTED]’ Then, nine seconds later, Mr. Pichai [REDACTED]. […] When asked under oath [REDACTED]’ (Id. Ex. 2, Pichai Dep. Tr. 195:7-12.)

    “Like Mr. Pichai, other key Google employees, including those in leadership roles, routinely opted to move from history-on rooms to history-off Chats to hold sensitive conversations, even though they knew they were subject to legal holds. Indeed, they did so even when discussing topics they knew were covered by the litigation holds in order to avoid leaving a record that could be produced in litigation.” (emphasis in original)

    The plaintiffs, including the Utah Attorney General, asked the court to issue an adverse ruling that Google was trying to hide something by deleting the messages. The court had previously indicated that it would not issue a ruling telling jurors they must conclude the deleted messages are indicative of Google intentionally hiding something, but the plaintiffs say this latest revelation provides enough evidence that that is exactly what Google and its executives were trying to do.

    In light of the recently produced documents, anything less than a clear adverse inference instruction — instructing the jury as to what Google did and what the jury should make of it — would reward Google for its years-long, calculated policy of systematically destroying evidence, and would encourage Google to maintain, rather than eradicate, the corporate culture of litigation misconduct it has nurtured for many years.

    If the plaintiffs are able to prevail upon the court and convince it to render such a judgment, it would be catastrophic for Google’s case.

    Eileen Scallen, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, previously told CNBC that an adverse jury instruction would be “very damning.”

    “The one person the jury respects in a courtroom is the trial judge,” Scallen said. “And if the trial judge is telling them you can presume that this was bad news for Google, they’re going to take that to heart.”

  • Samsung Max VPN Collects Your Private Data and Sells It

    Samsung Max VPN Collects Your Private Data and Sells It

    Users relying on Samsung’s Max VPN should look for other options to keep their data private and safe.

    Samsung includes and/or promotes its Max VPN service on its phones. As sharp-eyed Reddit user soboi12345 has pointed out, however, users’ data is not at all private when using Samsung’s VPN. In fact, the company collects unique identifying data and sells it to third parties.

    The company describes its practices in its Max Service Description and Privacy Policy:

    The Max Service app may log how you use your device, including unique identifiers, information about the software you’ve installed, device characteristics, information about your location and mobile carrier, the type of network you use to access web content, how much data you use, and the URLs you visit. We use this data to debug the Max Service app and to improve the user experience. We anonymize and/or aggregate this data and may allow our business partners access to it.

    To be clear, Samsung’s VPN is collecting unique identifiers, location data, the apps users have installed, and the websites they visit — and then selling that data rather than protecting users’ privacy.

    This is an appalling breach of trust for any VPN provider, especially since many VPN users are specifically looking to avoid exactly the kind of data collection Samsung is engaging in.

    Samsung’s behavior is even more egregious when considering that the company called out people’s data being used as a commodity when it launched Max VPN:

    “All over the world, data has become a commodity, but many plans are simply still too expensive for consumers that want to get the most out of the latest technology built into their devices,” said Seounghoon Oh, Vice President Samsung R&D Institute India, at the time. “With Samsung Max, our users in every corner of the globe now have increased autonomy and control over their data usage and privacy in an era of rising security threats, fraudulent apps and user profiling.”

    With such a strong statement, Samsung’s users could be forgiven for thinking the company would actually protect their privacy and not use their data as “a commodity.”

    As we have stated on WPN, and as The New York Times Wirecutter has recommended, Mullvad is the best VPN for users that truly care about their privacy. The company has a zero-logs policy and doesn’t save identifying information. In fact, users are given a random numeric account number for login purposes rather than using an email address or username.

    The company has also had extensive third-party security audits, is transparent about its ownership, has a clear privacy policy, good performance, and is reasonably priced.

  • Learn Linux TV Releases Ubuntu Flatpak Remix Distro

    Learn Linux TV Releases Ubuntu Flatpak Remix Distro

    Jay from the Learn Linux TV YouTube channel has released an Ubuntu-based distro built around Flatpaks.

    Flatpaks and Snaps are two universal packaging formats for Linux, giving developers the ability to build an app that can be run on any distro that has Flatpak support. The format accomplishes this by bundling all necessary dependencies within the package, although Flatpaks can share dependencies between them.

    As the maker of the far less popular Snap format and the Ubuntu distro, Canonical recently made the decision to prohibit official Ubuntu flavors from shipping with Flatpak installed and enabled out of the box. Despite the decision, Ubuntu is still a solid distro, one with wide hardware and app support.

    Jay has taken Ubuntu and replaced Snap with Flatpak while leaving everything else that makes Ubuntu the world’s leading Linux distro:

    The Flatpak Remix of Ubuntu features the awesome GNOME desktop, with Canonical’s attention to detail – unchanged from the standard release.

    While the standard release of Ubuntu features support for Snap Packages built-in, with this distribution the focus is on Flatpak instead.

    To learn more, check Jay’s video and the project’s website.

    https://youtu.be/w1-TIhtyCao
  • FBI & DOJ Investigating ByteDance & TikTok’s Surveillance of Journalists

    FBI & DOJ Investigating ByteDance & TikTok’s Surveillance of Journalists

    As if TikTok’s problems couldn’t get any worse, the FBI and DOJ are investigating its parent company for surveilling Forbes journalists.

    TikTok is owned by China-based ByteDance. The company is under pressure around the globe as one jurisdiction after another bans TikTok from government devices over privacy concerns.

    One of the most egregious privacy and security violations involved ByteDance’s admission that it used TikTok to surveil Forbes journalists, tracking their locations. The admission has sparked an investigation by the FBI and DOJ, according to Forbes:

    According to a source in position to know, the DOJ Criminal Division, Fraud Section, working alongside the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, has subpoenaed information from ByteDance regarding efforts by its employees to access U.S. journalists’ location information or other private user data using the TikTok app. According to two sources, the FBI has been conducting interviews related to the surveillance. ByteDance’s use of the app to surveil U.S. citizens was first reported by Forbes in October, and confirmed by an internal company investigation in December.

    At the time of the admission, ByteDance executives expressed their disapproval, with the executive responsible for the actions, Chris Lepitak, being fired. His direct superior who reported to the CEO, Song Ye, also resigned.

    “I was deeply disappointed when I was notified of the situation… and I’m sure you feel the same,” CEO Rubo Liang wrote in an internal email shared with Forbes at the time. “The public trust that we have spent huge efforts building is going to be significantly undermined by the misconduct of a few individuals. … I believe this situation will serve as a lesson to us all.”

    “It is standard practice for companies to have an internal audit group authorized to investigate code of conduct violations,” TikTok General Counsel Erich Andersen wrote in a second email. “However, in this case individuals misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data.”

    ByteDance told Forbes it would cooperate with any official investigation:

    “We have strongly condemned the actions of the individuals found to have been involved, and they are no longer employed at ByteDance. Our internal investigation is still ongoing, and we will cooperate with any official investigations when brought to us,” said ByteDance spokesperson Jennifer Banks. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

    The news comes at a time when TikTok is facing its most daunting challenges. In addition to being banned from government devices in the US, EU, UK, and Canada, the Biden administration has told ByteDance that TikTok will face a nationwide ban unless the company divests from TikTok.

  • Laid-Off Googlers Ask CEO to Honor Approved Medical Leave

    Laid-Off Googlers Ask CEO to Honor Approved Medical Leave

    Laid-off Google employees have repeatedly asked Google and CEO Sundar Pichai to honor previously approved medical leave.

    Google did what was once considered unthinkable for the company, laying off thousands of workers for the first time in its history. At the time, Google promised 16 weeks of severance pay plus an additional two weeks for every year an employee worked at the company.

    Unfortunately, for some workers, that still comes out to less time than they were previously promised for medical leave, parental leave, or caregiver’s leave. In early 2022, Google increased the length of various leaves, with parental leave lasting up to 24 months. At the time, Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi said the company wanted employees to “spend more time with their new baby, look after a sick loved one or take care of their own wellbeing,” according to CNBC.

    Now, faced with losing some of that time they were previously promised, more than 100 employees have formed the “Laid off on Leave” group. The group has already sent three letters to Google executives, including Pichai, asking them to honor their previous promise.

    In the meantime, the layoffs are causing a significant amount of hardship and inconvenience, including individuals losing access to their health care via Google’s on-site One Medical facility the moment the layoffs were announced.

    Still others found out about the reduced leave they’re now facing right when they needed it most.

    “Exactly a week after receiving the text and sharing the exciting news that my maternity leave was approved, I got the already widely talked-about email letting me know that I was among the 12k terminated,” a Google program manager wrote on LinkedIn. “Easy target? Maybe.”

    “On 1/20/23 at 7:05 am while in the hospital bed holding my hours-old newborn I learned that I was part of the #thegolden12K of Googlers who had been laid off,” Kate Howells wrote on LinkedIn. “I was a Googler for 9.5 years.”

    When contacted by CNBC, a Google spokesperson simply pointed to the original layoff announcement.

    “As we shared with impacted employees, we benchmarked this package to ensure the care we’re providing compares favorably with other companies, including for Googlers on leave,” the spokesperson said.

    Needless to say, the company’s actions are not going over well with Googlers and fly in the face of the image the company has maintained for years, in terms of how it treats its employees.

    “When Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced layoffs, he mentioned the company’s commitment to AI three times, but never once mentioned Google’s commitment to accessibility,” the group wrote in an email to CNBC. “This matters deeply because accessibility is part of the company’s actual mission. This clearly calls for a re-centering of priorities. It’s unsurprising that through a bungled demo just days after laying us off, Google showed they’re indeed not leading the way in AI. However, the good news is that an incredible opportunity remains to be an accessibility leader in the treatment of laid off workers.”

  • LinkedIn Users Will Be Able to Use AI to Help Create Their Profiles

    LinkedIn Users Will Be Able to Use AI to Help Create Their Profiles

    If you’ve ever struggled to find the right words to describe your career on LinkedIn, the platform is deploying AI to help.

    LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, giving it access to the same ChatGPT-based tech its parent company is using to power the next generation of its Bing search engine. The networking platform is looking for innovative ways to deploy the tech, including allowing users to tap into AI to write better profiles.

    The company made the announcement as part of a broader initiative to use AI in various classes:

    To empower members with the latest AI skills, starting today we’re unlocking more than 100 LinkedIn Learning courses – and coming soon we’ll roll out twenty new generative AI courses. From the basics to advanced applications of AI, these courses will help members gain a competitive edge in today’s rapidly-changing market.

    But that’s not all. We’re also starting to roll-out new AI-powered features, leveraging advanced OpenAI GPT models, as we continue to look for ways to create more value for our members and customers.

    • To help make the process easier and more effective, we’re testing a new tool for LinkedIn Premium subscribers that provides personalized writing suggestions to your About and headline sections.
    • We’re testing a new AI-powered job description tool that will make it faster and easier to write job descriptions.

    The new features should be a boon for anyone who’s struggled with writer’s block about their current job or a job they’re trying to find candidates for.

  • Wells Fargo Customers Are Missing Deposits

    Wells Fargo Customers Are Missing Deposits

    Wells Fargo customers are reporting missing deposits, with the bank investigating and promising a fix.

    According to ThinkAdvisor, Wells Fargo is aware of the issue and put the following statement on its website:

    “If you’re experiencing an issue with our online services, we apologize for the inconvenience. We’re working quickly to resolve it.”

    In addition, the bank provided the following statement to ThinkAdvisor:

    “Wells Fargo is aware that some customers’ direct deposit transactions are not showing on their accounts, however funds in accounts are accurate and available. We are working quickly on a resolution and apologize for the inconvenience. Customers’ accounts continue to be secure.”

    While certainly inconvenient, it’s at least good to know customer accounts have not been compromised and the issue appears to be a minor technical one.

  • PSA: Disable Wi-Fi Calling, VoLTE on Pixel & Samsung Phones IMMEDIATELY

    PSA: Disable Wi-Fi Calling, VoLTE on Pixel & Samsung Phones IMMEDIATELY

    Google has discovered 0-day vulnerabilities in Samsung’s Exynos modems that impact the most recent Pixel and Samsung devices.

    Samsung’s Exynos modem chipsets are used in a variety of devices, including Google’s Pixel 6 and 7 line, as well as a wide range of Samsung’s devices. Unfortunately, Google’s Project Zero has discovered 18 0-day vulnerabilities in the chipset, four which can be executed remotely with no user interaction.

    Tests conducted by Project Zero confirm that those four vulnerabilities allow an attacker to remotely compromise a phone at the baseband level with no user interaction, and require only that the attacker know the victim’s phone number. With limited additional research and development, we believe that skilled attackers would be able to quickly create an operational exploit to compromise affected devices silently and remotely.

    While still serious, the remaining 14 vulnerabilities are not as severe, since they require physical access to the device or a malicious network operator.

    Google recommends turning off Wi-Fi calling and VoLTE on all impacted devices, including the list below:

    • Mobile devices from Samsung, including those in the S22, M33, M13, M12, A71, A53, A33, A21, A13, A12 and A04 series;
    • Mobile devices from Vivo, including those in the S16, S15, S6, X70, X60 and X30 series;
    • The Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series of devices from Google;
    • any wearables that use the Exynos W920 chipset; and
    • any vehicles that use the Exynos Auto T5123 chipset.

    Google says patches should be issued to address the vulnerabilities permanently, with the March 2023 update for Pixels already including at least one fix:

    We expect that patch timelines will vary per manufacturer (for example, affected Pixel devices have already received a fix for CVE-2023-24033 in the March 2023 security update). In the meantime, users with affected devices can protect themselves from the baseband remote code execution vulnerabilities mentioned in this post by turning off Wi-Fi calling and Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) in their device settings. As always, we encourage end users to update their devices as soon as possible, to ensure that they are running the latest builds that fix both disclosed and undisclosed security vulnerabilities.

    To be clear, this is about as bad as it gets, in terms of mobile vulnerabilities, and users should take the necessary steps to protect themselves.

  • FCC Adopts Its First Rules Blocking Scam Texts

    FCC Adopts Its First Rules Blocking Scam Texts

    The Federal Communications Commission is cracking down on scam texting, adopting its first set of rules aimed at the practice.

    Scam texts have been a growing problem, with many of them illegal. The agency says the volume has increased a whopping 500% in recent years. What’s more, scam texts can pose a greater threat than scam calls since it can be difficult to block them. The FCC is working to address the issue, much like it has been cracking down on scam phone calls.

    Unveiled today, the FCC’s new rules would require carriers to block texts from suspect numbers:

    “The Report and Order adopted today requires blocking of text messages that appear to come from phone numbers that are unlikely to transmit text messages,” the FCC says. “This includes invalid, unallocated, or unused numbers. It also includes numbers that the subscriber to the number has self-identified as never sending text messages, and numbers that government agencies and other well-known entities identify as not used for texting. A second rule will require each mobile wireless provider to establish a point of contact for text senders, or have providers require their aggregator partners or blocking contractors to establish such a point of contact, which senders can use to inquire about blocked texts.”

    The agency also proposes changes to the Do-Not-Call Registry to include text messaging:

    “Today’s action also seeks public comment on further proposals to require providers to block texts from entities the FCC has cited as illegal robotexters,” the FCC adds. ” It also proposes to clarify that Do-Not-Call Registry protections – that is, prohibiting marketing messages to registered numbers – apply to text messaging and closing the lead generator loophole, which allows companies to use a single consumer consent to deliver robocalls and text messages from multiple – perhaps thousands – of marketers on subjects that may not be what the consumer had in mind.”

    Hopefully, the FCC’s efforts will significantly reduce what has become a plague for many consumers.

  • Baidu’s Ernie AI Reveal Stumbles Out of the Gate

    Baidu’s Ernie AI Reveal Stumbles Out of the Gate

    Baidu has revealed its Ernie AI chatbot, and the result has been similar to Google’s AI reveal in that it has stumbled out of the gate.

    Like Google, Baidu has been working overtime to catch up with Microsoft’s Bing AI. Baidu has finally “revealed” its Ernie chatbot, but the reveal did little to reassure investors that the company has a viable product.

    According to Ars Technica, company founder Robin Li only showed a pre-recorded demo of the product at the big reveal. Li tried to emphasize the company’s progress, despite the lackluster showing:

    “Sometimes when we use it we are pleasantly surprised, sometimes we may think there is an obvious error,” Li told the audience. “But one thing is for sure, it’s advancing very fast.

    “Its extremely strong ability to comprehend and express language will allow any company to get closer to their customers,” Li added. “It’s an opportunity for every company and it will even have an impact on every single person.”

    In the aftermath of the “demonstration,” Baidu’s stock tanked by 10% over fears that the company’s AI efforts may not be in as good a position as investors hoped. The sentiment is one shared by at least some Baidu employees.

    “We can only explore by ourselves. Training ChatGPT took OpenAI more than a year, and it took them another year to tune GPT-4,” said one Baidu employee. “It means we’re two years behind.”

  • Linux Distro Reviews: openSUSE Tumbleweed — Part 2

    Linux Distro Reviews: openSUSE Tumbleweed — Part 2

    openSUSE Tumbleweed is a rolling release Linux distro, one that is something of a two-edged sword in terms of its features and usability.

    In Part 1 of this review, we looked at openSUSE’s background, its openQA-provided stability, outstanding installer, choice of desktop environments, and its security. All of these are significant advantages of the distro. Unfortunately, security is also where openSUSE’s disadvantages begin to shine through.

    Disclaimer: Some will say the following points are too critical of openSUSE since it’s a more technical distro and not necessarily aimed at desktop users. Nonetheless, openSUSE’s own website says it is: “The makers’ choice for sysadmins, developers and desktop users.” Therefore, my final rating will reflect the distro’s ability to meet the needs of all three of those categories.

    Too Much Security?

    Security is only a good thing if it’s not so restrictive that people begin disabling features for the sake of convenience, and this is where openSUSE’s disadvantages begin to shine through.

    Of all the distros that I have tried to date (Fedora, Manjaro, openSUSE, KDE Neon, Pop!_OS, Kubuntu, and Zorin OS), openSUSE’s security policies are by far the most restrictive. Want to adjust your network settings? You’ll need to enter your password. Want to install a Flatpak app? You’ll need to enter your password. Change your timezone? Enter your password.

    What’s more, the default firewall settings are so strict that printer discovery doesn’t work out of the box. To be clear, every single other distro I’ve tried automatically discovers my HP printer on my network and lets me print without installing any additional drivers.

    In contrast, openSUSE cannot even discover the printer without changing the firewall profile from the default ‘Public’ to ‘Home,’ or adding the mDNS service to the ‘Public’ profile. Even when making sure mDNS is enabled, openSUSE still requires “hplip” software/driver package installed.

    Is it possible to overcome these issues? Yes. But many people, especially less technical users, give up before figuring out how to jump through all these hoops. In fact, a quick look at openSUSE’s Reddit will reveal that two common solutions to printing on openSUSE are a) disable the firewall altogether or b) “don’t print on openSUSE.” Seriously…I have seen that advice multiple times…”don’t print on openSUSE.”

    The issues with printing on openSUSE are irritating enough that Linux creator Linus Torvalds famously dumped openSUSE and switched to Fedora because printing was just too hard to bother with. Fans of the distro will point out that it has gotten better since that day…but it’s still not good enough for the average desktop user.

    Yast

    Yast stands for Yet Another Setup Tool and is one of the defining characteristics of openSUSE. The tool is a throwback to the earlier days of Linux when such setup and configuration tools were more common.

    There’s no denying that Yast is a powerful tool, one that is available as both a graphical and command-line package. For system admins, Yast provides a powerful way to administer openSUSE instances. There is almost nothing you can configure via the terminal that can’t be configured via Yast’s GUI, and it’s a tool I miss on other distros.

    At the same time, however, like openSUSE’s other hallmark features, Yast is something of a two-edged sword. While it’s undeniably useful — and this is purely subjective — I’m not a fan of how it takes over functions normally handled by a distro’s built-in tools. For example, I run the KDE Plasma desktop, which has excellent built-in tools for printing and firewall management. Yast takes these tasks over, however. Gnome has similarly useful tools as part of the system settings.

    As I said, I realize this is very subjective. Some users prefer to have one tool to manage such tasks, regardless of the desktop environment they use. Many users prefer to have one desktop-agnostic tool that never changes. I am not one of those users. I would prefer to use Plasma’s tools when they’re available and fall back to Yast when they’re not.

    Btrfs and Snapper

    One of openSUSE’s greatest features is its use of the btrfs filesystem and built-in Snapper support. Btrfs is a relatively new filesystem that provides automated system snapshots. This gives users the option to rollback to a previous snapshot from the boot menu in the event something goes wrong.

    Tinkering with your system and mess something up? Not a problem, just rollback and it never happened. The same goes for an update that borks something. Just rollback and wait for the issue to be addressed. This is truly a must-have setup for a rolling release distro.

    There are two downsides to keep in mind with btrfs (there’s that two-edged sword again):

    Btrfs is one of the slower filesystems in use by Linux distros. The excellent DJ Ware, on YouTube, has done extensive benchmarks showing how much slower the filesystem is. While I’ve not done such extensive benchmarks myself, I do have an everyday data point.

    When setting up the digiKam photo organizing software for the first time, the app scans your Pictures folder. On any distro using the older ext4 filesystem, it takes digikam anywhere from 4:57 to 5:17 to scan my 49GB of photos. In contrast, digiKam on openSUSE takes more than 7:50 to complete. This result, which I have been able to consistently reproduce, jives with DJ Ware’s benchmarks.

    The other potential downside is in regard to data integrity. Given that it’s still a young filesystem, there are still an uncomfortable number of reports about btrfs filesystems becoming hopelessly corrupted. Without a doubt, openSUSE has the most mature implementation of btrfs, but your mileage may vary.

    Patterns and Recommendations

    One of the things that makes openSUSE so successful at providing stability with a rolling release is its use of Patterns and recommendations.

    Patterns are collections of software that are related and share dependencies. For example, there’s a KDE Plasma Pattern, KDE Apps Pattern, Office Suite Pattern, Mobile Pattern, and more.

    The power of patterns is that it allows openSUSE developers to update an entire collection of software rather than try to determine what is or is not installed on a machine. Similarly, openSUSE defaults to installing any and all recommended dependencies when installing an application, unlike almost every other distro, in the interest of making sure no app is installed with any missing features.

    On paper, both of these seem like good ideas, and, to be clear, they are…to a point. Both of these features contribute greatly to openSUSE Tumbleweed being one of the most stable rolling-release distros.

    Unfortunately, Patterns and recommendations also result in some unfortunate side effects. For example, if you delete an application that is included in one of the default Patterns, it will be reinstalled on the next update. You will need to manually block the package, or the entire Pattern, in order to prevent its reinstallation.

    Random Papercuts

    Slack Issues

    In addition to the major things highlighted above, openSUSE running KDE has a bug that makes it almost impossible to add the workspaces I’m subscribed to. I can easily add three of them with no problem, but the fourth one always fails.

    The only way I can get it added to the Slack client is to try importing that workspace along with three or four defunct workspaces. After trying this one or three dozen times, the troublesome workspace will finally get imported. From what I’ve been able to tell via research, the workspace string that gets passed from browser to Slack clients gets mangled.

    At one point, I thought this was a KDE Plasma bug since it doesn’t happen on Gnome or Xfce. However, this only happens on openSUSE. It doesn’t happen on Manjaro KDE, Kubuntu, or KDE Neon. I have no idea what the problem is but, at least in my experience, it is a uniquely openSUSE issue.

    Network Login

    On multiple installs of openSUSE, I’ve had issues where I was constantly prompted to enter my root password and network password in order to stay connected. Wake the computer from sleep…enter my passwords. Needless to say, this got old quick.

    Conclusion

    openSUSE Tumbleweed is one of the most well-engineered distros on the market and offers a tremendous amount of features and abilities. Unfortunately, some of those features are a two-edged sword that cause as many problems as they solve.

    openSUSE Tumbleweed is a distro I love to play with and would love to use as my daily driver. Unfortunately, the inconveniences quickly wears on my nerves in daily use, and I end up moving on.

    That being said, for the right person, openSUSE is hands-down the best distro available.

    Rating

    For System Admins: 5 out of 5 stars

    The combination of Yast and its enterprise connections makes openSUSE quite possibly the best distro for system admins.

    For Developers: 4 out of 5 stars

    On the one hand, having the latest and greatest packages can be a big help to developers. On the other hand, the papercuts and irritations may take unnecessary time away from development.

    For Desktop Users: 3 out of 5 stars

    Before writing about tech, I was a software developer for over a decade. I’ve created software for major universities, companies, and the commercial market. In spite of that high-tech background, openSUSE was just too irritating and difficult for me to use on a daily basis, and I would never recommend it to most everyday users. It would have to be a special breed of desktop user, one that wants to spend as much time managing their computer as using it before I could recommend it to them.

  • Ransomware Survival 101: Don’t Follow Dish Network’s Playbook

    Ransomware Survival 101: Don’t Follow Dish Network’s Playbook

    Dish Network customers are still in limbo, with few answers weeks after the company was crippled by ransomware.

    Dish began experiencing major issues with its website, internal systems, and customer portal going offline in late February. Roughly a week later, the company admitted to suffering a massive ransomware attack, one that crippled operations and resulted in the theft of customer data.

    According to TechCrunch, Dish customers still have no idea what is going on, with many of them unable to access customer support, pay their bills, or get any kind of useful information.

    In fact, a number of customers have had their service disconnected because they have been unable to log into the customer portal to pay their bills. Others are already experiencing voice and email phishing attempts as hackers try to exploit the lack of information from Dish to take advantage of customers looking for answers.

    Company spokesperson Edward Wietecha told TechCrunch that “customers are having trouble reaching our service desks, accessing their accounts, and making payments.” When asked if the company was disconnecting users, Wietecha added that “customers who had their service temporarily suspended for nonpayment received additional time until our payment systems were restored.”

    In addition to the trouble Dish’s own customers are having, there is potential for the problem to be much worse and extend beyond Dish’s roughly 10 million customers. A former Dish retailer told TechCrunch that the company retains a veritable treasure trove of customer data from anyone who has ever signed up for Dish service, including those who never became customers because they didn’t pass the credit check. The information includes “customer names, dates of birth, email addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, and credit card information.” What’s more, it appears that Dish’s policy is to retain the information indefinitely.

    Overall, Dish is providing a case study of how not to handle a ransomware attack for any company that wants to come out the other side still having customers.

  • YouTube TV Unveils Four-Way Multiview Early Access

    YouTube TV Unveils Four-Way Multiview Early Access

    YouTube TV is testing out four-way multiview in early access, finally bringing one of fubuTV’s best features to the streaming service.

    Multiview allows a viewer to watch multiple streams simultaneously, splitting the screen between two or more events. fuboTV has had the feature for years, but YouTube TV is finally rolling it out to its users. While multiview is only available in early access, the company says all subscribers will be able to use it in the next few months.

    During early access, some members will begin to see an option to watch up to four pre-selected, different streams at once in their “Top Picks for You” section. After selecting multiview, viewers will be able to switch audio and captions between streams, and jump in and out of a fullscreen view of a game. Multiview joins our suite of features for sports fans and we’re looking forward to continuing to improve the experience and introducing it to all YouTube TV subscribers over the next several months.

    Best of all, the company is deploying the service in a way that all users, regardless of their home streaming equipment, will be able to use.

    “We moved the processing requirements to happen on YouTube’s servers,” said German Cheung, Engineering lead, YouTube TV. “This allows all subscribers to use the feature, regardless of their home equipment, because when it’s streamed to them, their device sees only one live feed, instead of two or four. ”

    Multiview is an awesome feature, especially for sports fans that don’t want to miss a moment of the action. By adding the feature to its service, YouTube TV is continuing to establish itself as the best all-around live TV streaming service.

  • T-Mobile Acquiring Mint Mobile, Bringing Ryan Reynolds Onboard

    T-Mobile Acquiring Mint Mobile, Bringing Ryan Reynolds Onboard

    T-Mobile has announced a deal to acquire Ka’ena Corporation, the parent company of Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile.

    Mint Mobile is the successful budget carrier owned by Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds serves as the company’s pitchman, bringing his unique blend of humor to the role. That humor was on full display in the announcement revealing the deal:

    “Mint Mobile is the best deal in wireless and today’s news only enhances our ability to deliver for our customers. We are so happy T-Mobile beat out an aggressive last-minute bid from my mom Tammy Reynolds as we believe the excellence of their 5G network will provide a better strategic fit than my mom’s slightly-above-average mahjong skills. I am so proud of the entire Mint team and so excited for what’s to come,” said Ryan Reynolds.

    “Mint has built an incredibly successful digital direct-to-consumer business that continues to deliver for customers on the Un-carrier’s leading 5G network and now we are excited to use our scale and owners’ economics to help supercharge it – and Ultra Mobile – into the future,” said Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile. “Over the long-term, we’ll also benefit from applying the marketing formula Mint has become famous for across more parts of T-Mobile. We think customers are really going to win with a more competitive and expansive Mint and Ultra.”

    “Our brands have thrived on the T-Mobile network, and we are thrilled that this agreement will take them even further, bringing the many benefits of 5G to even more Americans,” said David Glickman, founder and CEO of Mint, Ultra and Plum. “This transaction validates our meteoric success and will unite two proven industry innovators committed to doing things differently in the wireless industry.”

    Following the deal’s close, David Glickman and Rizwan Kassim will continue to manage the brand, which will largely remain independent. Reynolds will continue in his creative role, likely serving as the brand’s pitchman for years to come.

    The deal is worth up to $1.35 billion, a combination of 39% cash and 61% stock, and is expected to close later in 2023.

  • Reddit Is Coming Back Online After Major Outage

    Reddit Is Coming Back Online After Major Outage

    Reddit is coming back online Tuesday evening after a major outage that lasted several hours.

    Reddit went offline a little after 3:00 PM EDT. The company acknowledged the issue on their status page, saying they were working on a fix.

    Reddit is currently offline. We’re working to identify the issue.

    We’ve identified an internal systems issue and are working to determine a fix.

    Shortly after 8:00 PM, the company said it was almost back online.

    We’re almost back! You can find us hanging out in /r/downtimebananas, join us!

  • Meta Is Laying Off Another 10,000, Touts ‘Year of Efficiency’

    Meta Is Laying Off Another 10,000, Touts ‘Year of Efficiency’

    Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced the company is laying off an additional 10,000 employees and closing additional open roles.

    Meta laid off 11,000 in November, the biggest layoff of 2022. Rumors have been circulating for weeks that Meta planned another round of layoffs, which Zuckerberg has just announced:

    With less hiring, I’ve made the difficult decision to further reduce the size of our recruiting team. We will let recruiting team members know tomorrow whether they’re impacted. We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, and then our business groups in late May. In a small number of cases, it may take through the end of the year to complete these changes. Our timelines for international teams will also look different, and local leaders will follow up with more details. Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven’t yet hired.

    Zuckerberg says the hiring freezes will be lifted once the company’s reorganization is complete:

    After restructuring, we plan to lift hiring and transfer freezes in each group. Other relevant efficiency timelines include targeting this summer to complete our analysis from our hybrid work year of learning so we can further refine our distributed work model. We also aim to have a steady stream of developer productivity enhancements and process improvements throughout the year.

    A major focus of the company’s efforts is reducing the various layers of management, streamlining and flattening the company’s communication:

    In our Year of Efficiency, we will make our organization flatter by removing multiple layers of management. As part of this, we will ask many managers to become individual contributors. We’ll also have individual contributors report into almost every level — not just the bottom — so information flow between people doing the work and management will be faster.

    Meta’s image has already been tarnished, in the eyes of its employees, after its first round of layoffs. Many blame Zuckerberg and his obsession with the metaverse. Laying off another 10,000 employees is not likely to improve that perception.

  • Employees Blame ‘Stupid’ Silicon Valley Bank CEO

    Employees Blame ‘Stupid’ Silicon Valley Bank CEO

    After Silicon Valley Bank’s spectacular collapse last week, employees and industry insiders are blaming the CEO’s “stupid” decisions.

    Greg Becker, SVB’s CEO, announced last Wednesday that the bank needed to raise just north of $2 billion. What no one can explain, however, is why a 40-year veteran of the banking industry didn’t privately try to raise the capital before making an announcement.

    “That was absolutely idiotic,” the employee, who works on the asset management side of Silicon Valley Bank, told CNN in an interview. “They were being very transparent. It’s the exact opposite of what you’d normally see in a scandal. But their transparency and forthright-ness did them in.

    “People are just shocked at how stupid the CEO is,” the Silicon Valley Bank insider added. “You’re in business for 40 years and you are telling me you can’t raise $2 billion privately? Get on a jet and fly to Kuwait like everyone else and give them control of one-third of the bank.”

    Industry insiders shared the employee’s evaluation:

    “Someone lit a match and the bank yelled, ‘Fire!’ – pulling the alarms in earnest out of genuine concern for transparency and honesty,” Jeff Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian, the CEO and research director, respectively, at Yale School of Management’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute (CELI), told CNN.

    Sonnenfeld agreed that SVB’s leadership deserved criticism for a “tone-deaf, botched execution.”

  • Bitcoin Surges After Banks Collapse

    Bitcoin Surges After Banks Collapse

    On the heels of three banks collapsing in the last week, Bitcoin appears to be benefiting from consumer fears.

    The tech industry and financial markets are reeling from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank. The tech industry was particularly dependent on SVB with its collapse still sending shock waves throughout the industry.

    According to Decrypt, Bitcoin is benefiting from spooked consumers and investors, with the cryptocurrency rising almost 20% since SVG’s collapse.

    In fact, the entire market appears to be getting a boost, with individual cryptos up across the board.