WebProNews

Author: Matt Milano

  • Dish Network Customer Data Stolen in Ransomware Attack

    Dish Network Customer Data Stolen in Ransomware Attack

    More details have emerged regarding Dish Network’s recent outage, including the fact that customer data was stolen in the incident.

    Dish began experiencing major issues Thursday morning, with employees unable to work or access internal systems. The company’s website was also down. At the time, CEO Erik Carlson chalked it up to an “internal outage.”

    In a filing with the SEC, however, the company has admitted the issue was the result of a ransomware attack, one that compromised customer data:

    On February 27, 2023, the Corporation became aware that certain data was extracted from the Corporation’s IT systems as part of this incident. It is possible the investigation will reveal that the extracted data includes personal information. The measures described above are continuing while the Corporation, with the assistance of third-party experts and advisors, investigates the extent of the cyber-security incident.

    The company is working to restore the impacted services and is working with law enforcement.

  • BlackLotus Malware Is the First to Bypass Secure Boot

    BlackLotus Malware Is the First to Bypass Secure Boot

    Computer security became a little more challenging, with the BlackLotus malware becoming the first to bypass Secure Boot.

    Secure Boot is a method of signing the kernel and various boot components, ensuring that no malicious software can be inserted into the boot process and compromise a machine. While there have been many claims of malware that can bypass secure boot, BlackLotus is the first.

    According to ESET malware analyst Martin Smolár, “the first publicly known UEFI bootkit bypassing the essential platform security feature – UEFI Secure Boot – is now a reality.”

    Smolár goes on to discuss ESET’s findings, including the fact that BlackLotus can compromise even “the latest, fully patched Windows 11 systems with UEFI Secure Boot enabled.”

    The malware uses a vulnerability that was patched more than a year ago because “the affected, validly signed binaries have still not been added to the UEFI revocation list. BlackLotus takes advantage of this, bringing its own copies of legitimate – but vulnerable – binaries to the system in order to exploit the vulnerability.”

    In many ways, a bootkit like BlackLotus is the Holy Grail of exploits because the bootkit has “full control over the OS boot process and thus capable of disabling various OS security mechanisms and deploying their own kernel-mode or user-mode payloads in early OS startup stages.”

    Because the bootkit hijacks the process early on, attackers can even enroll their own keys in the system so that the malware can have unfettered access without tripping any security measures.

    ESET’s research is disturbing on many levels, not the least of which is the fact that BlackLotus can be delivered both off and online. This means an attacker does not need physical access to a device in order to compromise it.

    To make matters worse, it appears the vulnerability BlackLotus exploits is not the only one.

    “UEFI Secure Boot stands in the way of UEFI bootkits, but there are a non-negligible number of known vulnerabilities that allow bypassing this essential security mechanism,” writes Smolár. “And the worst of this is that some of them are still easily exploitable on up-to-date systems even at the time of this writing – including the one exploited by BlackLotus.”

    At this point, there are not absolute mitigation measures, only a combination of things that can reduce the likelihood of a compromise. Once a computer is compromised, the safest thing to do is to reinstall it and use the mokutil utility to delete the signed key BlackLotus deposits that enables it to bypass Secure Boot.

  • Google Play Now Warns Users About Buggy Apps

    Google Play Now Warns Users About Buggy Apps

    Android users may be spared some headaches, with Google Play now warning them before installing buggy apps.

    First spotted by Android Police, Mishaal Rahman tweeted screenshots of a Google Play dialog that warns users when an app they’re about to download has not been performing well on similar hardware.

    The feature is a nice addition to the Play Store and should save users some irritation.

  • Ford Hires Former Argo Staff for Automated Driving Company

    Ford Hires Former Argo Staff for Automated Driving Company

    Ford is doubling down on automated driving research, hiring 550 former Argo AI staff to form a new company.

    Argo AI was an automated driving startup that shut down after Ford and Volkswagen stopped backing it. While Ford may have pulled its investments in Argo, it appears the company recognized Argo’s engineering talent, hiring 550 of its former employees for its new Latitude AI subsidiary. In fact, according to a company statement, it appears Latitude’s entire workforce is made up of former Argo employees:

    Establishing Latitude supports Ford’s strategic shift last year to focus on automated driving technologies for personally owned vehicles. Ford hired about 550 employees formerly of Argo AI across machine learning and robotics, cloud platforms, mapping, sensors and compute systems, test operations, systems and safety engineering. The Latitude team has applied much of their experience in automated driving, including software development tools and infrastructure, in the pivot to work on advanced driver assist systems (ADAS).

    Ford hopes to build on the success of its BlueCruise technology, which recently took Consumer Reports’ top spot among automated driving systems.

    “We see automated driving technology as an opportunity to redefine the relationship between people and their vehicles,” said Doug Field, chief advanced product development and technology officer, Ford Motor Company. “Customers using BlueCruise are already experiencing the benefits of hands-off driving. The deep experience and talent in our Latitude team will help us accelerate the development of all-new automated driving technology – with the goal of not only making travel safer, less stressful and more enjoyable, but ultimately over time giving our customers some of their day back.”

    We believe automated driving technology will help improve safety while unlocking all-new customer experiences that reduce stress and in the future will help free up a driver’s time to focus on what they choose,” said Sammy Omari, executive director, ADAS Technologies at Ford and Latitude CEO. “The expertise of the Latitude team will further complement and enhance Ford’s in-house global ADAS team in developing future driver assist technologies, ultimately delivering on the many benefits of automation.”

  • Users Can Now Adjust Bing AI’s Personality

    Users Can Now Adjust Bing AI’s Personality

    Microsoft has added a major new feature to its Bing AI, allowing users to choose how they want the AI to behave.

    Microsoft announced a preview of its AI-powered Bing search in early February. The AI is a new and improved version of the OpenAI tech behind ChatGPT. Early reviews have been all over the place, with people ranging from impressed to creeped out.

    Microsoft has been steadily improving the experience, with the most recent feature upgrade giving users the ability to dial in how Bing will respond and interact. A new toggle gives users the ability to choose between More Creative, More Balanced, and More Precise. The company describes each option:

    More Creative

    Responses are original and imaginative, creating surprise and entertainment for you.

    More Balanced

    Responses are reasonable and coherent, balancing accuracy and creativity in conversation.

    More Precise

    Responses are factual and concise, prioritizing accuracy and relevancy for you.

    The new options are a nice touch, giving users more control over the experience.

  • Florida Could Require Registration for Bloggers Writing About Elected Officials

    Florida Could Require Registration for Bloggers Writing About Elected Officials

    Florida is raising eyebrows with a bill that would require anyone blogging about the state’s elected officials to register or face fines.

    According to NBC affiliate WFLA, Florida Senator Jason Brodeur has proposed a new bill that would force bloggers writing about the “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature” to register with the state and file monthly reports if they receive compensation for what they write.

    The bill goes on to say that the bill “does not include the website of a newspaper or other similar publication,” but reading the bill’s text leaves tremendous room for interpretation and does not definitively rule out any type of news coverage.

    What’s more, the bill doesn’t even limit its scope to bloggers within the state of Florida:

    “Blogger” means any person as defined in s. 1.01(3) that submits a blog post to a blog which is subsequently published.

    “Blog post” is an individual webpage on a blog which contains an article, a story, or a series of stories.

    The bill then outlines a schedule of monthly reports bloggers would be subject to:

    If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register with the appropriate office, as identified in paragraph (1)(f), within 5 days after the first post by the blogger which mentions an elected state officer.

    Upon registering with the appropriate office, a blogger must file monthly reports on the 10th day following the end of each calendar month from the time a blog post is added to the blog, except that, if the 10th day following the end of a calendar month occurs on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the report must be filed on the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday.

    Failure to comply would lead to some hefty fines:

    A fine of $25 per day per report for each day late, not to exceed $2,500 per report.

    It seems that Senator Brodeur may need a primer on the First Amendment and how it applies to bloggers, as well as all news coverage in general. In the meantime, it’s highly unlikely such a law — if the bill even passes — would ever survive a legal challenge.

  • Germany Pushes Back Against EU Client-Side Scanning Plans

    Germany Pushes Back Against EU Client-Side Scanning Plans

    The EU Commission wants to roll out client-side scanning on consumers’ devices, but Germany is pushing back against the plan.

    Client-side scanning is being touted by some companies and regulators as a way to “preserve” end-to-end encryption by scanning for illegal content on a person’s device. If such content is found, authorities will be notified. The idea is that since all the scanning occurs on a user’s device, communications between devices can remain end-to-end encrypted.

    Germany, however, isn’t buying that argument and, at a recent hearing of the German Parliament’s Digital Committee, made clear it doesn’t agree with the EU’s proposal. Germany is basing its opinion on the many computer and security experts who have testified that the EU’s proposal will do far more harm than good.

    “The draft regulation basically misses the goal of countering child abuse representations,” emphasized the Computer scientist and spokeswoman for the Chaos Computer Club, Elina Eickstädt (via computer translation). “The design is based on a gross overestimation of capabilities of technologies “, especially with regard to the detection of unknown material.

    Client-side scanning also represents “an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure,“ added Eickstädt. She pointed out that even an error rate of one percent will lead to billions of false reports, warning that the technology could eventually become “censorship tools of equal value.”

    Read more: EU Proposes Most Privacy-Invasive Measure Yet to Tackle Child Abuse

    Interestingly, even the Head of the Central and Contact Point Cybercrime North Rhine-Westphalia, Chief Prosecutor Markus Hartmann, said the EU’s proposal goes too far. Instead, he said existing law enforcement agencies should be shored up to better utilize server-side scanning abilities and traditional investigative techniques, rather than the more invasive client-side scanning.

    The EU Commission’s proposal is certainly one of the most privacy-invasive measures being pursued by a democracy. Even by the EU’s own admission, a client-side scanning “process would be the most intrusive one for users.”

    The EU’s proposal is currently being negotiated, giving Germany a chance to make its case and have the client-side scanning clause dropped. Otherwise, should the bill become law, many experts believe it will never survive its first court challenge.

    “Child protection is not served if the regulation later fails before the European Court of Justice,” said Felix Reda from the Society for Freedom Rights. “The damage to the privacy of all people would be immense “, he added. “The tamper-free surveillance violates the essence of the right to privacy and cannot therefore be justified by any fundamental rights assessment.”

    Should the EU’s proposal go unchallenged, as Harvard cryptography professor Matthew Green says, the bloc will go down in history as creating “the most sophisticated mass surveillance machinery ever deployed outside of China and the USSR.”

  • Qualcomm CEO: Apple Will Use Their Own Modems in 2024

    Qualcomm CEO: Apple Will Use Their Own Modems in 2024

    Qualcomm isn’t holding out any hope of continuing as Apple’s primary modem supplier and is expecting to lose that business in 2024.

    Apple and Qualcomm have a contentious relationship, one filled with alternating deals and lawsuits. For the time being, Qualcomm is the primary provider of the modems Apple uses in its iPhones and iPads, but the Cupertino company has been working hard to build its own modems and end reliance on Qualcomm.

    It appears those plans are closer to reality than ever before, according to Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon.

    “We’re making no plans for 2024, my planning assumption is we’re not providing [Apple] a modem in ’24, but it’s their decision to make,” Amon told CNBC at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

    Apple bought Intel’s failed modem division after the latter exited the business, accusing Qualcomm of creating a “a web of anticompetitive conduct designed to allow Qualcomm to coerce customers, tilt the competitive playing field and exclude competitors, all the while shielding itself from legal scrutiny and capturing billions in unlawful gains.”

    While there’s no love lost between Apple and Qualcomm, the latter is sure to feel a financial hit from losing the lucrative iPhone business.

  • Hackers Had Access to News Corp’s Systems For Two Years

    Hackers Had Access to News Corp’s Systems For Two Years

    News Corp has revealed that a previously acknowledged breach was much worse than originally thought.

    News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal, revealed in February 2022 that it had suffered a cybersecurity breach. The company said the breach involved “persistent cyberattack activity” in a third-party cloud service it used.

    Unfortunately, in a breach notification first spotted by Ars Technica, the company has admitted that the breach went on for two years:

    “Based on the investigation, News Corp understands that, between February 2020 and January 2022, an unauthorized party gained access to certain business documents and emails from a limited number of its personnel’s accounts in the affected system, some of which contained personal information,” the letter stated. “Our investigation indicates that this activity does not appear to be focused on exploiting personal information.”

    The company did say that it does not believe any fraud or identity theft has been committed as a result of the breach. Instead, News Corp told Ars that investigators “believe that this was an intelligence collection.”

    That conclusion would certainly be in line with conclusions gathered last year when the breach was first discovered. At the time, News Corp enlisted security firm Mandiant to help it resolve the situation. Mandiant’s conclusion was that the attack was carried out by hackers affiliated with the Chinese government.

  • Hackers Reportedly Compromised T-Mobile 100+ Times in 2022

    Hackers Reportedly Compromised T-Mobile 100+ Times in 2022

    T-Mobile does not have a good reputation when it comes to cybersecurity, and that’s about to get a whole lot worse.

    T-Mobile has had multiple cybersecurity breaches over the last few years, impacting tens of millions of users and costing the company hundreds of millions in settlements. Unfortunately, that may be just the tip of the iceberg, according to a new report from Krebs on Security.

    According to Krebs, three different hackers groups claim to have accessed the company’s internal systems:

    Three different cybercriminal groups claimed access to internal networks at communications giant T-Mobile in more than 100 separate incidents throughout 2022, new data suggests. In each case, the goal of the attackers was the same: Phish T-Mobile employees for access to internal company tools, and then convert that access into a cybercrime service that could be hired to divert any T-Mobile user’s text messages and phone calls to another device.

    The hackers’ goal was SIM-swapping, a term for when a hacker is able to gain control over a victim’s cellphone number.

    The data regarding attacks was collected by monitoring various Telegram channels used by the hacker groups. The message “Tmobile up!” or “Tmo up!” was posted anytime a hacker successfully SIM-swapped a target.

    Krebs initially planned on counting the instances for all of 2022, working backward from the end of the year. Unfortunately, the number of hacks racked up much faster than anticipated.

    But by the time we got to claims made in the middle of May 2022, completing the rest of the year’s timeline seemed unnecessary. The tally shows that in the last seven-and-a-half months of 2022, these groups collectively made SIM-swapping claims against T-Mobile on 104 separate days — often with multiple groups claiming access on the same days.

    It’s unclear why T-Mobile is suffering so many of these attacks. While there are similar efforts against Verizon and AT&T, the number of successful attempts is far less. Some experts believe the magenta carrier is not doing enough to secure its systems.

    “These breaches should not happen,” said Nicholas Weaver, a UC Berkeley researcher. “Because T-Mobile should have long ago issued all employees security keys and switched to security keys for the second factor. And because security keys provably block this style of attack.”

    For its part, T-Mobile told Krebs it is combating the issue while also emphasizing it is an industry-wide problem.

    “And we are constantly working to fight against it,” the statement reads. “We have continued to drive enhancements that further protect against unauthorized access, including enhancing multi-factor authentication controls, hardening environments, limiting access to data, apps or services, and more. We are also focused on gathering threat intelligence data, like what you have shared, to help further strengthen these ongoing efforts.”

    There is evidence to suggest the company is making progress, with the hacker groups complaining that their access after a successful swap is being severed much sooner than before. Some have even theorized that T-Mobile’s security team may be monitoring the Telegram channels.

    While it’s encouraging to see T-Mobile is making progress, it’s still disturbing that the company is experiencing this many breaches.

  • Move Over Subscription Economy, Usage-Based Billing Is Here

    Move Over Subscription Economy, Usage-Based Billing Is Here

    Subscription pricing models may be an unforeseen casualty of the economic downturn, paving the way for usage-based billing.

    Subscription pricing models have permeated everything from cloud services to mobile apps and are a far cry from the early days of computing and the internet. For those old enough to remember, software was sold — often in a box — for a one-time fee for that major version of the software. When a major new version was released, users could usually pay a cheaper upgrade fee to move to the latest and greatest.

    With the rise of the internet, however, subscription models quickly dominated the market and all but supplanted the one-time fee model. Thanks to the economic downturn, however, Business Insider makes the case that subscription pricing may be on the verge of going the way of its predecessor.

    In place of subscriptions, usage-based billing is the new hot thing in the software market. Rather than a flat monthly rate, usage-based billing only charges customers for what they actually use. As Insider points out, this is not uncommon among cloud providers but is poised to spread out to other areas of the industry.

    The model could be a viable and appealing option for much wider use, especially as businesses are looking to rein in expenses wherever possible.

    “If you think about the evolution of business models, it’s always trended more and more towards being more friendly to the customer,” Rishi Jaluria, an RBC software analyst, told Insider. “It is very likely, in my opinion, that there will be more companies that are either on a consumption model or offer a consumption element to the model.”

    Jaluria’s views are shared even by those entrenched in the subscription model approach.

    “The best companies are saying, ‘We want to have a mix of models that really accommodates all our different customers,’” said Tien Tzuo, CEO of Zuora, a subscription-billing-management company. “Different customers might want different things as well.”

  • Former App Store Editor: ‘Apple Doesn’t Care About Games’

    Former App Store Editor: ‘Apple Doesn’t Care About Games’

    Former App Store Editor Neil Long has disappointing news for mobile game developers, saying, “Apple doesn’t care about games.”

    Long served as an App Store Editor, giving him a behind-the-scenes look into how Apple’s processes work. Unfortunately, the picture he paints in an article in The Guardian is less than flattering, saying Apple is pocketing billions without making the necessary re-investment in the App Store.

    Long lists a number of early game hits and then makes the case that Apple was unprepared for its newfound success:

    So what did Apple do next? Nothing really. It seemed to create a whole new games ecosystem by accident, and ever since has presided over it like a contemptuous landlord. It takes a tasty 30% cut of almost every in-app purchase while doing next to nothing to earn that fee. Recent privacy policies – including the introduction of that “ask app not to track” pop-up you will have seen again and again – have even actively harmed the mobile games business.

    Apple’s issues are especially apparent during the app review process:

    The woefully understaffed team of app reviewers couldn’t handle the volume of games coming through – and seemingly still can’t today. Ask any staffer at a mobile game studio and they’re guaranteed to have an app review horror story involving their game being repeatedly rejected for an arbitrary reason, or removed from sale entirely. Developers are being treated with contempt.

    Long also takes aim at the plague of copycat apps that so many game developers have to deal with, arguing that Apple could and should have improved the situation through further investment:

    Apple could have reinvested a greater fraction of the billions it has earned from mobile games to make the App Store a good place to find fun, interesting games to fit your tastes. But it hasn’t, and today the App Store is a confusing mess, recently made even worse with the addition of ad slots in search, on the front page and even on the product pages themselves.

    App developers have increasingly grown tired of Apple’s stewardship of the App Store, pushing for more freedom regarding how they publish their apps and make money off of them. Reading Long’s take on the condition of the App Store — especially for game developers — one comes away understanding developers’ plight a little more.

  • Stanford Professor: Tech Layoffs Are ‘Copycat Behavior’

    Stanford Professor: Tech Layoffs Are ‘Copycat Behavior’

    A Stanford professor has confirmed what many suspect, saying Big Tech’s layoffs are more about “copycat behavior than necessary cost-cutting.”

    Tech companies have already laid off hundreds of thousands of workers, blaming an economic downturn and overly-aggressive hiring during the pandemic for the current cuts. It appears many of those cuts are not necessary, instead reflecting a fundamental truth about human nature, Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer told Business Insider’s Sarah Jackson:

    The idea that human behavior is influenced by what others do is really old. If you’re a pedestrian and you see a stop signal, but no cars are coming and somebody steps into the street, you’ll probably do it too. It’s almost automatic behavior.

    We should expect this to also be true in business. A lot of companies were hiring during the pandemic, so everybody decided to hire. Now, companies are laying off, and everybody decided to follow each other and lay people off. A lot of this is just imitation.

    Read more: LinkedIn Hit With Layoffs

    Professor Pfeffer goes on to question the dubious “advantages” many companies tout when laying off employees:

    In many instances, layoffs don’t increase stock prices or cut costs. Between things like the cost of severance and the loss of productivity, layoffs have pretty nasty and negative consequences for the company. It’s not clear they actually increase profits.

    The irony is that these same companies were talking a year ago about people as their most important asset, and now they’re treating their employees pretty badly, laying them off via email or by abruptly cutting off their access to the company. These layoffs are a decision that reflects the company’s values, and these companies have basically given their employees the middle finger.

    Virtually every one of the world’s biggest tech firms has already laid off thousands, including Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta. In fact, only Apple stands apart among Big Tech companies as the one that has yet to engage in mass layoffs.

    Perhaps, given Professor Pfeffer linking layoffs to “copycat behavior,” it’s not all that surprising Apple is the one Big Tech company to avoid layoffs. Apple has a long history of bucking popular conventions and the company and has rarely, if ever, been accused of being a copycat.

  • Intuit Lobbying Congress to Protect Its Tax Filing Business

    Intuit Lobbying Congress to Protect Its Tax Filing Business

    Intuit is going all-in in its lobbying efforts to protect its lucrative tax filing business at a time when Congress is threatening it.

    US law guarantees taxpayers earning less than $69,000 a year can file their taxes for free. Unfortunately, Intuit and other companies often make it difficult for users to find free filing options. Lawmakers wrote a letter to Intuit CEO Sasan K. Goodarzi in April 2022, demanding answers about what they called the company’s “Free File scams.”

    Intuit’s problems got worse in September 2022 when the Inflation Reduction Act set aside $15 million to help the IRS develop an easier platform for taxpayers to file for free.

    According to OpenSecrets, Intuit has responded by spending a whopping $3.5 million in 2022 lobbying Congress. That sum is more than the company spent any previous year. Intuit claims that a government-run tax preparation service represents a conflict of interest.

    “Unquestionably, a government-run tax preparation system that makes the tax collector the investigator, auditor, enforcer, and now also the preparer, is a conflict of interest,” Goodarzi told Business Insider.

    What Goodarzi conveniently omits, however, is that government-run tax filing services work very well in almost every other developed country in the world. In fact, taxpayers in many other countries look with amazement at the state of the US tax industry.

    It’s probably a safe bet that Goodarzi’s comments are more self-serving than a demonstration of genuine concern for the American taxpayer.

  • DOJ Says Google Misled It, “Systematically Destroyed” Messages

    DOJ Says Google Misled It, “Systematically Destroyed” Messages

    The Department of Justice says Google “systematically destroyed” messages and misled the agency about its actions.

    US companies are required by law to keep copies of internal communications if there is any reasonable anticipation of upcoming litigation. In Google’s case, the DOJ argues in its filing that the company should have anticipated the government’s legal action against it as early as mid-2019, according to CNBC.

    In spite of the DOJ’s belief that Google should have anticipated the current litigation, the company continued to delete its internal chats every 24 hours…right up to this month. Instead, the company left it up to individuals to decide whether they would keep or auto-delete their messages.

    “Few, if any,” did, says the DOJ.

    To make matters worse, the DOJ says the company repeatedly and “falsely” told the agency that it had ”‘put a legal hold in place’ that ‘suspends auto-deletion.’”

    See Also: States Sue Google for Antitrust

    As a result of the DOJ’s claims, Judge James Donato indicated at the end of January that he would consider an adverse jury instruction, although he would be open to allowing the jury to arrive at their own conclusions regarding the implications of Google’s actions.

    Eileen Scallen, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, 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.”

    In the meantime, Google is disputing the DOJ’s claims. A company spokesperson told CNBC that company officials “strongly refute the DOJ’s claims. Our teams have conscientiously worked for years to respond to inquiries and litigation. In fact, we have produced over 4 million documents in this case alone, and millions more to regulators around the world.”

    Given the various antitrust investigations that have been building against the company for years, it is hard to fathom any halfway intelligent individual not anticipating possible litigation against the company. Google may well have dug its own grave on this one.

  • Comcast Caught Giving Fake Coverage Data to FCC…Again

    Comcast Caught Giving Fake Coverage Data to FCC…Again

    Comcast seems determined to maintain its status as one of America’s most hated companies, repeatedly misleading the FCC about its coverage.

    The FCC has been working to build accurate internet coverage maps of the US in an effort to better allocate funds and resources to close the digital divide. Unfortunately, Comcast seems hell-bent on not providing accurate information.

    According to Ars Technica, the company has once again been caught providing misleading information, only correcting it when called out for the behavior.

    The issues revolved around service in Fort Collins, Colorado, an area Comcast claimed to cover with its service. Justin Olsson, a lawyer for a tech company, was unable to get Comcast service for his mother’s address, despite Comcast claiming it covered the location.

    Only after Ars reached out to Comcast did the company stop disputing Olsson’s challenges and admit to the FCC that it did not, in fact, cover Olsson’s mother’s address.

    Upon further review of the location ID in question, Comcast has determined that the location is currently not serviceable by Comcast,” the company told the FCC.

    Olsson shared his response to Comcast with Ars after the broadband company informed him that it had modified its coverage data to reflect reality:

    I appreciate that you finally admitted it after Ars Technica reached out to you… I would like to point out, however, that it’s really absolutely unacceptable that you contested my challenge without even looking into it—even when you had evidence in your own system that the address wasn’t serviceable.

    You wasted hours of my time, and it’s hard not to think that was part of the strategy, hoping that people wouldn’t follow up and letting you get away with your blatant dishonesty in the broadband map effort. I hope for the country’s sake that you all can clean up your act and not continue to do business in this way.

    Olsson hits the nail on the head and rightly calls out Comcast for its unacceptable and dishonest behavior.

    In the meantime, the company’s status among America’s most hated companies remains securely intact.

  • Developer Opens eBay Account, Gets Suspended Indefinitely

    Developer Opens eBay Account, Gets Suspended Indefinitely

    Rafael Conde, a developer for Sketch and Hand Mirror, created an eBay account, made his first purchase, and promptly got suspended indefinitely.

    eBay was once THE online destination for used, unique, and vintage items on the internet. In recent years, however, it has been eclipsed by a variety of other platforms. A recent Twitter thread by Conde illustrates an issue that could be a major factor in eBay’s decline.

    According to Conde, he set up an eBay account to look for and buy vintage items that aren’t easily found elsewhere. After his first purchase, however, he was notified that his account had been suspended. Talking with an online customer support representative didn’t yield any resolution, with the customer service rep saying the decision was final and nothing could be done.

    To matters even worse, the transaction for the item Conde bid on had already gone through. eBay’s solution was to tell him to contact his payment provider and dispute the charges.

    What’s more, in an unfathomable admission, the eBay rep seemed to indicate that this was a common and normal way of verifying new users.

    The Ask eBay Twitter account responded to Conde’s thread, reiterating that nothing could be done.

    The entire exchange is displayed below and is definitely not a good look for a company that needs to attract users…not alienate them.

  • It’s Official: Bing Is Cool, and Google Search Is In Trouble

    It’s Official: Bing Is Cool, and Google Search Is In Trouble

    Microsoft’s AI-powered Bing represents an existential threat to Google’s search, with early reports suggesting Google may be in serious trouble.

    Microsoft unveiled its AI-powered Bing last week, using a new and improved version of the OpenAI tech behind ChatGPT. The move is largely seen as one of the biggest challenges Google has faced to its core search business and could help Bing make major headway against its rival.

    Early reports indicate that Microsoft’s AI-powered Bing is performing far better than critics anticipated and is serving up better results than an old-school Google search. In fact, CNET’s Stephen Shankland put ten questions to both search engines and came away preferring Bing’s response to eight of the questions. Interestingly, Bing did especially well on complex questions, as well as at providing information about recent events, such as the US shooting down a ‘high-altitude object’ over Alaska.

    Read More: Google Won the Search Wars, but Can It Win the AI Search Wars?

    Similarly, Android Central posted a poll to see how many of its readers would be willing to switch to the new Bing once it’s available to the public. A whopping 52% said they would switch and give Bing a try, with 11% already using Bing and only 30% saying they would stick with Google.

    Indeed, Microsoft VP Yusuf Mehdi revealed the company quickly saw more than one million people sign up to test-drive the new Bing.

    Needless to say, Google is not going to take this challenge to its business lying down. In fact, the company has been rushing to roll out its own ChatGPT challenger, Bard. Unfortunately, in its rush, the company bungled Bard’s unveiling. This led to a $100 billion drop in the company’s value and vocal criticism of CEO Sundar Pichai from Google’s own employees.

    The picture is clear: Microsoft has taken an early lead in the AI search wars and is moving quickly to capitalize on it. This has resulted in Bing being seen as cool — quite possibly for the first time ever.

    And Google? Google is in real trouble — quite possibly for the first time ever.

  • Meta Plans to Lay Off More Personnel

    Meta Plans to Lay Off More Personnel

    Meta appears to be moving forward with plans to lay off additional personnel despite CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicating the contrary.

    Meta laid off 11,000 employees in late 2022, marking the biggest layoffs of the year among tech firms. According to The Washington Post, Zuckerberg framed the layoffs as a necessary step to “minimize the chance of having to do broad layoffs like this for the foreseeable future.”

    “I obviously can’t sit here and promise you that nothing will happen in the future because it’s a very volatile environment,” he added. “But what I can say is that for where we are right now, that’s what I foresee.”

    Unfortunately, according to the Post, Meta appears to be preparing for another major round of layoffs, despite Zuckerberg’s assurances. The company is having its lawyers, financial experts, executives, and human resources personnel devise a plan that would reorganize the company and possibly lead to thousands of jobs being cut.

    Part of leadership’s goal is to flatten the corporate hierarchy, reducing the path between Zuckerberg and the company’s interns. The move will see some team leaders taking on lower-level roles. The Post’s sources said the company expects some of the individuals whose roles have changed to eventually resign, naturally reducing the company’s headcount through attrition.

    The Post’s report confirms other rumors regarding the company’s plans. Meta recently gave thousands of its employees the second-lowest review possible, raising concerns it was laying the groundwork for another round of layoffs.

    Meta’s actions also appear to be a concerted effort to streamline its operations and return to the startup-style way of operating it enjoyed before becoming a multi-billion dollar corporation. The company has recently taken fire for its ‘self-sabotaging’ behavior by none other than legendary developer John Carmack.

    “We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort,” Carmack wrote when he departed the company in December. “There is no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy.”

    “I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it,” he added.

  • Ubuntu Flavors Drop OOTB Flatpak Support

    Ubuntu Flavors Drop OOTB Flatpak Support

    Ubuntu has made yet another controversial decision, dropping out-of-the-box (OOTB) support for Flatpak apps.

    Flatpak is one of the newer methods of packaging Linux applications, one that is distro agnostic. Regardless of whether a user is on Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Fedora, openSUSE, Slackware, or any of the others, as long as they have the Flatpak backend installed, any and all Flatpaks will work on their distro of choice.

    Flatpaks directly compete with Snaps, Ubuntu’s own attempt to build a distro-agnostic packaging format. Unfortunately for Ubuntu, Snaps are not nearly as popular as Flatpaks. In fact, while some distributions may offer both package managers OOTB few, if any, offer Snaps but not Flatpak.

    It appears Ubuntu plans to be the first, announcing its decision to drop OOTB support for Flatpaks in the upcoming 23.04 Lunar Lobster release.

    Philipp Kewisch, Canonical Community Engineering Manager, broke the news:

    As part of our combined efforts, the Ubuntu flavors have made a joint decision to adjust some of the default packages on Ubuntu: Going forward, the Flatpak package as well as the packages to integrate Flatpak into the respective software center will no longer be installed by default in the next release due in April 2023, Lunar Lobster. Users who have used Flatpak will not be affected on upgrade, as flavors are including a special migration that takes this into account. Those who haven’t interacted with Flatpak will be presented with software from the Ubuntu repositories and the Snap Store.

    Kewisch makes clear that the update will not delete Flatpak from existing installations, and the package format will still be available for users that want to install it manually. Nonetheless, the decision to remove OOTB support is in-line with the company’s belief that Flatpak doesn’t properly fit in with the “Ubuntu experience.”

    We think this will improve the out-of-the-box Ubuntu experience for new users while respecting how existing users personalize their own experiences. However, we don’t want this to come as a surprise. If you have comments specific to this change you are welcome to respond here on discourse.

    There are a number of reasons Snaps are not as popular as Flatpaks, among users and distro maintainers. One of the big ones is the fact that Snaps can only be installed via Ubuntu’s Snap Store. As a result, while the apps themselves may still be open source, the store they are available in is not.

    Another reason many users don’t like Snaps is because of performance. Compared to Flatpaks and native packages, many snaps are notoriously slow to start for the first time. In fact, Canonical’s own Snap Advocate, Alan Pope, left the company and created an app to help users migrate their Snaps to Flatpaks.

    In recent years, Ubuntu has come under increased criticism for being so focused on the server and IoT market that it is no longer the best distro for desktop users, a distinction it held for years.

    This latest decision is sure to add fuel to that fire.

  • SCOTUS Appears Reluctant to Overturn Section 230

    SCOTUS Appears Reluctant to Overturn Section 230

    The US Supreme Court appears reluctant to overturn Section 230, setting up a major win for tech firms and online platforms.

    Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects online companies from legal fallout for content posted by users on their platforms. The law is what shields Twitter, Facebook, and other from being legally liable, regardless of the kind of content their users post.

    In recent years, Section 230 has come under attack, with lawmakers and regulators on both sides of the aisle looking to see its protections repealed, or at least scaled back.

    SCOTUS is considering the first significant challenge to the law, a case brought by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, one of the victims of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. The case alleges that Google was partially responsible for the radicalization of the perpetrators by algorithmically pushing Islamic State videos to interested parties.

    According to The New York Times, the justices appeared unconvinced that fundamentally crippling how internet platforms recommend information will solve anything.

    “If you’re interested in cooking,” Justice Clarence Thomas said, “you don’t want thumbnails on light jazz.” He later added, “I see these as suggestions and not really recommendations because they don’t really comment on them.”

    Meanwhile, Google’s lawyer argued that repealing Section 230 would basically break the internet, causing it devolve into super-moderated zones that border on censorship, or lawless zones that are “a horror show.”

    Given how important Section 230 is, there’s sure to be people upset on both sides, regardless of how the court rules.