VLC media player, the popular open-source software developed by nonprofit VideoLAN, has topped 6 billion downloads worldwide and teased an AI-powered subtitle system. From a report: The new feature automatically generates real-time subtitles -- which can then also be translated in many languages -- for any video using open-source AI models that run locally on users' devices, eliminating the need for internet connectivity or cloud services, VideoLAN demoed at CES.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Italy is in advanced talks with Elon Musk's SpaceX for a deal to provide secure telecommunications for the nation's government -- the largest such project in Europe, people with knowledge of the matter said Sunday. Discussions are ongoing, and a final agreement on the five-year contract hasn't been reached, said the people, who asked not to be identified citing confidential discussions. The project has already been approved by Italy's Intelligence Services as well as Italy's Defense Ministry, they said. Italy on Monday confirmed discussions are ongoing, saying no deal had yet been reached. "The talks with SpaceX are part of normal government business," the government said.

The negotiations, which had stalled until recently, appeared to move forward after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited President-elect Donald Trump in Florida on Saturday. The Italian government said the two didn't discuss the issue during their meeting. Italian officials have been negotiating on a $1.6 billion deal aimed at supplying Italy with a full range of top-level encryption for telephone and Internet services used by the government, the people said. The plan also includes communications services for the Italian military in the Mediterranean area as well as the rollout of so-called direct-to-cell satellite services in Italy for use in emergencies like terror attacks or natural disasters, they said. The possible deal has been under review since mid-2023. It's been opposed by some Italian officials concerned about how the services may detract from local carriers.

BleepingComputer's Sergiu Gatlan reports: "Today, the White House announced the launch of the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark, a new cybersecurity safety label for internet-connected consumer devices. The Cyber Trust Mark label, which will appear on smart products sold in the United States later this year, will help American consumers determine whether the devices they want to buy are safe to install in their homes. It's designed for consumer smart devices, such as home security cameras, TVs, internet-connected appliances, fitness trackers, climate control systems, and baby monitors, and it signals that the internet-connected device comes with a set of security features approved by NIST.

Vendors will label their products with the Cyber Trust Mark logo if they meet the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity criteria. These criteria include using unique and strong default passwords, software updates, data protection, and incident detection capabilities. Consumers can scan the QR code included next to the Cyber Trust Mark labels for additional security information, such as instructions on changing the default password, steps for securely configuring the device, details on automatic updates (including how to access them if they are not automatic), the product's minimum support period, and a notification if the manufacturer does not offer updates for the device. "Americans are worried about the rise of criminals remotely hacking into home security systems to unlock doors, or malicious attackers tapping into insecure home cameras to illicitly record conversations," the Biden administration said on Tuesday.

"The White House launched this bipartisan effort to educate American consumers and give them an easy way to assess the cybersecurity of such products, as well as incentivize companies to produce more cybersecure devise [sic], much as EnergyStar labels did for energy efficiency.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AT&T, following last year's embarrassing botched update that kicked every device off its wireless network and blocked over 92 million phone calls, is now promising full-day bill credits to mobile customers for future outages that last at least 60 minutes and meet certain other criteria. A similar promise is being made to fiber customers for unplanned outages lasting at least 20 minutes, but only if the customer uses an AT&T-provided gateway. The "AT&T Guarantee" announced today has caveats that can make it possible for a disruption to not be covered. AT&T says the promised mobile bill credits are "for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers."

The full-day bill credits do not include a prorated amount for the taxes and fees imposed on a monthly bill. The "bill credit will be calculated using the daily rate customer is charged for wireless service only (excludes taxes, fees, device payments, and any add-on services," AT&T said. If an outage lasts more than 24 hours, a customer will receive another full-day bill credit for each additional day. If only nine or fewer AT&T towers aren't functioning, a customer won't get a credit even if they lose service for an hour. The guarantee kicks in when a "minimum 10 towers [are] out for 60 or more minutes resulting from a single incident," and the customer "was connected to an impacted tower at the time the outage occurs," and "loses service for at least 60 consecutive minutes as a result of the outage."

The guarantee "excludes events beyond the control of AT&T, including but not limited to, natural disasters, weather-related events, or outages caused by third parties." AT&T says it will determine "in its sole discretion" whether the disruption is "a qualifying" network outage. "Consumers will automatically receive a bill credit equaling a full day of service and we'll reach out to our small business customers with options to help make it right," AT&T said. When there's an outage, AT&T said it will "notify you via e-mail or SMS to inform you that you've been impacted. Once the interruption has been resolved, we'll contact you with details about your bill credit." If AT&T fails to provide the promised credit for any reason, customers will have to call AT&T or visit an AT&T store.

To qualify for the similar fiber-outage promise, "customers must use AT&T-provided gateways," the firm said. There are other caveats that can prevent a home Internet customer from getting a bill credit. AT&T said the fiber-outage promise "excludes events beyond the control of AT&T, including but not limited to, natural disasters, weather-related events, loss of service due to downed or cut cable wires at a customer residence, issues with wiring inside customer residence, and power outages at customer premises. Also excludes outages resulting from planned maintenance." AT&T notes that some residential fiber customers in multi-dwelling units "have an account with AT&T but are not billed by AT&T for Internet service." In the case of outages, these customers would not get bill credits but would be given the option to redeem a reward card that's valued at $5 or more.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Akamai has decided to end its content delivery network services in China, but not because it's finding it hard to do business in the Middle Kingdom. News of Akamai's decision to end CDN services in China emerged in a letter it recently published and sent to customers and partners that opens by reminding them the company has a "commitment to providing world-class delivery and security solutions" -- and must therefore inform them that "Effective June 30, 2026, all China CDN services will reach their decommission date."

Customers are offered a choice: do nothing and then be moved to an Akamai CDN located outside China, or use similar services from Chinese companies Tencent Cloud and Wangsu Science & Technology.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: To members of his synagogue, the voice that played over the speakers of Congregation Emanu El in Houston sounded just like Rabbi Josh Fixler's. In the same steady rhythm his congregation had grown used to, the voice delivered a sermon about what it meant to be a neighbor in the age of artificial intelligence. Then, Rabbi Fixler took to the bimah himself. "The audio you heard a moment ago may have sounded like my words," he said. "But they weren't." The recording was created by what Rabbi Fixler called "Rabbi Bot," an A.I. chatbot trained on his old sermons. The chatbot, created with the help of a data scientist, wrote the sermon, even delivering it in an A.I. version of his voice. During the rest of the service, Rabbi Fixler intermittently asked Rabbi Bot questions aloud, which it would promptly answer.

Rabbi Fixler is among a growing number of religious leaders experimenting with A.I. in their work, spurring an industry of faith-based tech companies that offer A.I. tools, from assistants that can do theological research to chatbots that can help write sermons. [...] Religious leaders have used A.I. to translate their livestreamed sermons into different languages in real time, blasting them out to international audiences. Others have compared chatbots trained on tens of thousands of pages of Scripture to a fleet of newly trained seminary students, able to pull excerpts about certain topics nearly instantaneously. The report's author draws a parallel to previous generations' initial apprehension -- and eventual embrace -- of transformative technologies like radio, television, and the internet. "For centuries, new technologies have changed the ways people worship, from the radio in the 1920s to television sets in the 1950s and the internet in the 1990s," the report says. "Some proponents of A.I. in religious spaces have gone back even further, comparing A.I.'s potential -- and fears of it -- to the invention of the printing press in the 15th century."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Instagram has begun testing a feature in which Meta's AI will automatically generate images of users in various situations and put them into that user's feed. One Redditor posted over the weekend that they were scrolling through Instagram and were presented an AI-generated slideshow of themselves standing in front of "an endless maze of mirrors," for example. "Used Meta AI to edit a selfie, now Instagram is using my face on ads targeted at me," the person posted. The user was shown a slideshow of AI-generated images in which an AI version of himself is standing in front of an endless "mirror maze." "Imagined for you: Mirror maze," the "location of the post reads."

"Imagine yourself reflecting on life in an endless maze of mirrors where you're the main focus," the caption of the AI images say. The Reddit user told 404 Media that at one point he had uploaded selfies of himself into Instagram's "Imagine" feature, which is Meta's AI image generation feature. People on Reddit initially did not even believe that these were real, with people posting things like "it's a fake story," and "I doubt that this is true," "this is a straight up lie lol," and "why would they do this?" The Redditor has repeatedly had to explain that, yes, this did happen. "I don't really have a reason to fake this, I posted screenshots on another thread," he said. 404 Media sent the link to the Reddit post directly to Meta who confirmed that it is real, but not an "ad."

"Once you access that feature and upload a selfie to edit, you'll start seeing these ads pop up with auto-generated images with your likeness," the Redditor told 404 Media. A Meta spokesperson told 404 Media that the images are not "ads," but are a new feature that Meta announced in September and has begun testing live. Meta AI has an "Imagine Yourself" feature in which you upload several selfies and take photos of yourself from different angles. You can then ask the AI to do things like "imagine me as an astronaut." Once this feature is enabled, Meta's AI will in some cases begin to automatically generate images of you in random scenarios that it thinks are aligned with your interests.

A U.S. Appeals Court ruled this week that net neutrality couldn't be reinstated by America's Federal Communications Commission. But "Despite the dismantling of the FCC's efforts to regulate broadband internet service, state laws in California, New York and elsewhere remain intact," notes the Los Angeles Times: This week's decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, striking down the FCC's open internet rules, has little bearing on state laws enacted during the years-long tug-of-war over the government's power to regulate internet service providers, telecommunications experts said. In fact, some suggested that the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit's decision — along with other rulings and the U.S. Supreme Court's posture on a separate New York case — has effectively fortified state regulators' efforts to fill the gap. "Absent an act of Congress, the FCC has virtually no role in broadband any more," Ernesto Falcon, a program manager for the California Public Utilities Commission, said in an interview. "The result of this decision is that states like California, New York and others will have to govern and regulate broadband carriers on our own."

California has one of the nation's strongest laws on net neutrality, the principle that internet traffic must be treated equally to ensure a free and open network. Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed the measure into law in 2018, months after federal regulators in President elect-Donald Trump's first administration repealed the net neutrality rules put in place under President Obama. Colorado, Oregon and other states also adopted their own standards.

The Golden State's law has already survived legal challenges. It also prompted changes in the way internet service providers offered plans and services. "California's net neutrality law, which is seen as the gold standard by consumer advocates, carries national impact," Falcon said.... "The state's authority and role in broadband access has grown dramatically now," Falcon said.
California's net neutrality rules prohibit "throttling" data speeds, according to the article.

In a potential U.S.-China conflict, cyberattackers are military weapons. That's the thrust of a new article from the Wall Street Journal: The message from President Biden's national security adviser was startling. Chinese hackers had gained the ability to shut down dozens of U.S. ports, power grids and other infrastructure targets at will, Jake Sullivan told telecommunications and technology executives at a secret meeting at the White House in the fall of 2023, according to people familiar with it. The attack could threaten lives, and the government needed the companies' help to root out the intruders.

What no one at the briefing knew, including Sullivan: China's hackers were already working their way deep inside U.S. telecom networks, too. The two massive hacking operations have upended the West's understanding of what Beijing wants, while revealing the astonishing skill level and stealth of its keyboard warriors — once seen as the cyber equivalent of noisy, drunken burglars. China's hackers were once thought to be interested chiefly in business secrets and huge sets of private consumer data. But the latest hacks make clear they are now soldiers on the front lines of potential geopolitical conflict between the U.S. and China, in which cyberwarfare tools are expected to be powerful weapons. U.S. computer networks are a "key battlefield in any future conflict" with China, said Brandon Wales, a former top U.S. cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security, who closely tracked China's hacking operations against American infrastructure. He said prepositioning and intelligence collection by the hackers "are designed to ensure they prevail by keeping the U.S. from projecting power, and inducing chaos at home."

As China increasingly threatens Taiwan, working toward what Western intelligence officials see as a target of being ready to invade by 2027, the U.S. could be pulled into the fray as the island's most important backer... Top U.S. officials in both parties have warned that China is the greatest danger to American security.

In the infrastructure attacks, which began at least as early as 2019 and are still taking place, hackers connected to China's military embedded themselves in arenas that spies usually ignored, including a water utility in Hawaii, a port in Houston and an oil-and-gas processing facility. Investigators, both at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and in the private sector, found the hackers lurked, sometimes for years, periodically testing access. At a regional airport, investigators found the hackers had secured access, and then returned every six months to make sure they could still get in. Hackers spent at least nine months in the network of a water-treatment system, moving into an adjacent server to study the operations of the plant. At a utility in Los Angeles, the hackers searched for material about how the utility would respond in the event of an emergency or crisis. The precise location and other details of the infrastructure victims are closely guarded secrets, and couldn't be fully determined.

American security officials said they believe the infrastructure intrusions — carried out by a group dubbed Volt Typhoon — are at least in part aimed at disrupting Pacific military supply lines and otherwise impeding America's ability to respond to a future conflict with China, including over a potential invasion of Taiwan... The focus on Guam and West Coast targets suggested to many senior national-security officials across several Biden administration agencies that the hackers were focused on Taiwan, and doing everything they could to slow a U.S. response in a potential Chinese invasion, buying Beijing precious days to complete a takeover even before U.S. support could arrive.
The telecom breachers "were also able to swipe from Verizon and AT&T a list of individuals the U.S. government was surveilling in recent months under court order, which included suspected Chinese agents. The intruders used known software flaws that had been publicly warned about but hadn't been patched."

And ultimately nine U.S. telecoms were breached, according to America's deputy national security adviser for cybersecurity — including what appears to have been a preventable breach at AT&T (according to "one personal familiar with the matter"): [T]hey took control of a high-level network management account that wasn't protected by multifactor authentication, a basic safeguard. That granted them access to more than 100,000 routers from which they could further their attack — a serious lapse that may have allowed the hackers to copy traffic back to China and delete their own digital tracks.
The details of the various breaches are stunning: Chinese hackers gained a foothold in the digital underpinnings of one of America's largest ports in just 31 seconds. At the Port of Houston, an intruder acting like an engineer from one of the port's software vendors entered a server designed to let employees reset their passwords from home. The hackers managed to download an encrypted set of passwords from all the port's staff before the port recognized the threat and cut off the password server from its network...

Developer/data journalist Josh Renaud is also long-time Slashdot reader Kirkman14 — and he's got a story to tell: How do you get people interested in an obscure Atari ST graphics format used on BBSes in the late 1980s and early 1990s? Recruit some folks to help you make an artpack full of images and animations showing it off! That's the idea behind IGNITE, a new artpack from Mistigris computer arts and Break Into Chat, featuring 18 images and animations created in "Instant Graphics and Sound" format.

I love telling unknown underdog computer stories, and IGS sucked me in. This fall, I published a six-part, 14,000-word history, introducing readers to a cast of characters that included Mears, the self-described "working man without a degree" who often downplayed his own coding ability; Kevin Moody and Anthony Rau, two Navy guys in Florida who bonded over their love of Atari and BBSing; Steve Turnbull, an artist and scenic designer working in Hollywood; and many others.

But IGS isn't just a thing of the past. Two years ago, on New Years Eve 2022, Mears made a surprise announcement — he was releasing a new version of IGS, thirty years after he had stopped working on the project.

Because I (inadvertently) had spurred Larry to action, I felt an obligation to make some art using his new tools. I completed my first piece — a drawing of a ship from the sci-fi game FTL — in early 2023. Over the subsequent months, I kept at it, and ended up creating a number of fun animations. I'm particularly proud of the [Star Trek-themed] animated Guardian of Forever login sequence, and a brand-new Calvin and Hobbes-themed animation I created just for this pack.

I had long wanted to release an all-IGS artpack as a way to honor Mears, highlight IGS, and maybe stir other people's interest in trying this format. To lower the barrier to entry, I created my own web-based drawing tool, JoshDraw, which supports a small subset of IGS's features. To my surprise, I successfully recruited seven other people to submit nine static images to include in the pack.

It's weighs less than 15 pounds. It's 17 inches wide. And in June Elon Musk said it was "easily carried in a backpack. This product will change the world."

And now, CNET reports: Calling all digital nomads and van-lifers: SpaceX's Starlink Mini is now available everywhere in the US. The small antenna costs $599 and requires a monthly subscription of either $50 or $165, depending on which plan you choose. Thanks to thousands of low Earth orbit satellites, Starlink has the unique ability to send high-speed internet just about anywhere. Standard service is great for home internet in rural areas, while the provider's Roam service and new portable dish are ideal for staying connected on the go...

The Mini is a satellite dish and Wi-Fi router all in one that's about the size of a laptop. According to Starlink's website, it uses approximately half the power of Starlink's standard dish. It can be powered with a portable USB battery and can "melt snow and withstand sleet, heavy rain and harsh winds."
The article adds that users "can connect up to 128 devices, and it promises low latency... According to Starlink's broadband labels, your download speeds typically range from 30 to 100Mbps and 5 to 25Mbps in upload."

Remember that massive botnet run by Chinese government hackers? Flax Typhoon "compromised computer networks in North America, Europe, Africa, and across Asia, with a particular focus on Taiwan," according to the U.S. Treasury Department. (The group's botnet breaching this autumn affected "at least 260,000 internet-connected devices," reports the Washington Post, "roughly half of which were located in the United States.")

Friday America's Treasury Department sanctioned "a Beijing-based cybersecurity company for its role in multiple computer intrusion incidents against U.S. victims..." according to an announcement from the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. "Between summer 2022 and fall 2023, Flax Typhoon actors used infrastructure tied to Integrity Tech during their computer network exploitation activities against multiple victims. During that time, Flax Typhoon routinely sent and received information from Integrity Tech infrastructure."

From the Washington Post: The group behind the attacks was active since at least 2021, but U.S. authorities only managed to wrest control of the devices from the hackers in September, after the FBI won a court order that allowed the agency to send commands to the infected devices...

Treasury's designation follows sanctions announced last month on Sichuan Silence Information Technology Company, in which U.S. officials accused the company of exploiting technology flaws to install malware in more than 80,000 firewalls, including those protecting U.S. critical infrastructure. The new sanctions on Beijing Integrity Technology are notable due to the company's public profile and outsize role in servicing China's police and intelligence services via state-run hacking competitions. The company, which is listed in Shanghai and has a market capitalization of more than $327 million, plays a central role in providing state agencies "cyber ranges" — technology that allows them to simulate cyberattacks and defenses...

In September, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said the Flax Typhoon attack successfully infiltrated universities, media organizations, corporations and government agencies, and in some cases caused significant financial losses as groups raced to replace the infected hardware. He said at the time that the operation to shut down the network was "one round in a much longer fight...." A 2024 assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said China is the most "active and persistent" cyberthreat and that actors under Beijing's direction have made efforts to breach U.S. critical infrastructure with the intention of lying in wait to be able to launch attacks in the event of major conflict.
"The Treasury sanctions bar Beijing Integrity Technology from access to U.S. financial systems and freeze any assets the company might hold in the United States," according to the article, "but the moves are unlikely to have a significant effect on the company," (according to Dakota Cary, a fellow at the Atlantic Council who has studied the company's role in state-sponsored hacking).

In 2024, Americans spent 23% less on streaming subscriptions compared to 2023, driven by rising costs, streaming fatigue, and increased password-sharing restrictions. The findings have been reported in Review's annual State of Consumer Media Spending Report. TechSpot reports: Of those surveyed, 27.8 percent said they are experiencing streaming fatigue - or the feeling of being overwhelmed by the growing number of streaming apps on the market. And with the cost of goods and services at an all-time high, it's hitting folks in the wallet as well. The report additionally found that the average American has two streaming subscriptions, and watches three hours and 49 minutes of content each day. More than a quarter of subscribers - 26.5 percent - share subscriptions with others to save on cost although with recent crackdowns on password sharing, that might not be an option for much longer.

As such, Reviews recommends downsizing the number of subscriptions you pay for each month or spending more time using free services if you're looking to cut down on costs in the New Year. For example, you could stagger subscriptions by signing up for a service temporarily to watch a specific show or movie and canceling when you are finished. It's also wise to keep an eye out for free trials, discounts, and limited-time streaming deals like those occasionally offered from Internet and mobile providers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Rolling Stone: Sun pours through the lush foliage of a jungle, bleaching the pale limestone as a rotting man stands in the center of an otherwise empty arena, his yellow eyes leering from beneath a fringe of limp, blonde hair. Positioned around the edge are a hundred bodies, Orcs and Trolls and bipedal oxen shouting, demanding, the death of the dishonorable. Their voices swell into a cacophony of noise before one rings out above the rest, howling, 'Kill the cheater and you'll get 20 gold!' There is silence, and then another frenzy. As I watch, eyes fixed on the dim glow of a laptop screen, I think of the colosseum in Rome -- sweat running down the muscled arms of battle-tested gladiators, the crowd cheering for blood.

This might sound like a moment pulled from a high fantasy drama made for prestige TV, but this is World of Warcraft, a now 20-year old online RPG. Instead of actors parading in front of green screens, this story's cast are streamers that occupy a virtual world. Tensions are high not because they're scripted, but because in World of Warcraft's Hardcore mode, death is permanent. Dejected, though acknowledging the transgression made, Sequisha -- the streamer who was promptly executed for cheating -- sighs, and goes back to the character select screen. He creates a new avatar; it's time to start the game all over again.

Sequisha's execution and subsequent reincarnation is just one of hundreds of stories playing out everyday in World of Warcraft as streamers have flocked to the massively multiplayer online RPG (MMORPG) to play together. Through their strife, and a commitment to staying in-character via roleplay, groups like the guild OnlyFangs have turned World of Warcraft into an RPG within an RPG, playing out improvisational personal drama where the stakes are high. In Hardcore mode, World of Warcraft has become the best soap opera on the internet, all playing out across over dozens of OnlyFangs creator streams every day. The new "Classic" and "Hardcore" servers were launched in celebration of World of Warcraft's 20th anniversary, helping to reignite interest in the game and increase viewership on platforms like Twitch and YouTube. The Hardcore server, where character death is permanent, attracted top streamers, leading to the formation of guilds like OnlyFangs.

After a successful first season, OnlyFangs reshuffled its roster, embracing a more immersive roleplaying approach in its second season. "What they didn't know was their experiment in World of Warcraft roleplay would inadvertently create one of the best emergent dramas on the internet," reports Rolling Stone.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A U.S. online gift card store has secured an online storage server that was publicly exposing hundreds of thousands of customer government-issued identity documents to the internet. A security researcher, who goes by the online handle JayeLTee, found the publicly exposed storage server late last year containing driving licenses, passports, and other identity documents belonging to MyGiftCardSupply, a company that sells digital gift cards for customers to redeem at popular brands and online services.

MyGiftCardSupply's website says it requires customers to upload a copy of their identity documents as part of its compliance efforts with U.S. anti-money laundering rules, often known as "know your customer" checks, or KYC. But the storage server containing the files had no password, allowing anyone on the internet to access the data stored inside. JayeLTee alerted TechCrunch to the exposure last week after MyGiftCardSupply did not respond to the researcher's email about the exposed data. [...]

According to JayeLTee, the exposed data -- hosted on Microsoft's Azure cloud -- contained over 600,000 front and back images of identity documents and selfie photos of around 200,000 customers. It's not uncommon for companies subject to KYC checks to ask their customers to take a selfie while holding a copy of their identity documents to verify that the customer is who they say they are, and to weed out forgeries. MyGiftCardSupply founder Sam Gastro told TechCrunch: "The files are now secure, and we are doing a full audit of the KYC verification procedure. Going forward, we are going to delete the files promptly after doing the identity verification." It's not known how long the data was exposed or if the company would commit to notifying affected individuals.

A U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday the Federal Communications Commission did not have legal authority to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules. From a report: The decision is a blow to the outgoing Biden administration that had made restoring the open internet rules a priority. President Joe Biden signed a 2021 executive order encouraging the FCC to reinstate the rules.

A three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the FCC lacked authority to reinstate the rules initially implemented in 2015 by the agency under Democratic former President Barack Obama, but then repealed by the commission in 2017 under Republican former President Donald Trump.

The rules also forbid special arrangements in which ISPs give improved network speeds or access to favored users. The court cited the Supreme Court's June decision in a case known as Loper Bright to overturn a 1984 precedent that had given deference to government agencies in interpreting laws they administer, in the latest decision to curb the authority of federal agencies. "Applying Loper Bright means we can end the FCC's vacillations," the court ruled.

Politico: Joe Biden spent the first half of his presidency enacting plans to steer at least $1.6 trillion to transform the economy and spur a clean-energy revolution -- only to watch those programs become afterthoughts in the 2024 election. Now the core of his domestic legacy stands unfinished, with hundreds of billions of dollars left to deploy, and imperiled as Donald Trump prepares to take office.

A wide-ranging examination of the Biden administration's spending and tax policies reveals signs that his efforts could leave a lasting mark, but also ways in which his agenda has yet to take hold -- after unleashing money for batteries, solar cells, computer chips and clean water; luring foreign-owned factories to U.S. soil; and turning some red-state Republicans into supporters of green energy projects.

Throughout 2024, POLITICO's "Biden's Billions" series has documented the halting pace, uneven progress and genuine economic impact of a spending blueprint rivaling Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. With just weeks left in Biden's term, it's not at all certain his legacy will endure in the same way. Much of it remains a work in progress.

Solar installations have surged to record levels, but the country is not adding enough zero-carbon electricity to meet Biden's climate targets. A $42 billion expansion of broadband internet service has yet to connect a single household. Bureaucratic haggling, equipment shortages and logistical challenges mean a $7.5 billion effort to install electric vehicle chargers from coast to coast has so far yielded just 47 stations in 15 states.

Americans check their phones an average of 205 times a day, a 42.3% increase from last year. Millennials are leading the charts in frequency, attachment, and anxiety over phone use, while Gen Z spends the most time daily on their devices at over six hours. PCMag reports: There's a good chance that you're currently reading this article on your phone. If you're like one of the Americans surveyed by Reviews.org, this is one of 205 times today that you'll be checking the device in your hand. To spare you opening the calculator app, that's about once every five minutes you are awake or two and a half full months out of your year.

That's an alarming 42.3% rise from last year when the reviews company asked the same question and found people checked their phones 144 times per day. Some of the ways they spend those 205 moments are:

- 80.6% check their phones within the first 10 minutes of waking up
- 65.7% use their phone on the toilet
- 53.7% have texted someone in the same room
- 38.1% use or look at their phone while on a date
- 27% use or look at their phone while driving

And, of course, there are those many, many times when people check their notifications, with 76% checking their phones within five minutes of receiving one. Millennials are the fastest on the draw, with 89.5% of them checking within 10 minutes. Gen Z and Gen X have found common ground (finally), with 84% of each group looking at notifications shortly after receiving them. Boomers and the Silent Generation aren't as anxious to see who is trying to reach them, with 69% and 53.3%, respectively, checking their notifications within a few minutes.

Reuters reports: Finnish police said on Sunday they had found tracks that drag on for dozens of kilometres along the bottom of the Baltic Sea where a tanker carrying Russian oil is suspected of breaking a power line and four telecoms cables with its anchor... A break in the 658 megawatt (MW) Estlink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia occurred at midday on Wednesday, leaving only the 358 MW Estlink 1 linking the two countries, grid operators said. They said Estlink 2 might not be back in service before August.
In an interesting twist, the New York Times reports that the ship "bears all the hallmarks of vessels belonging to Russia's shadow fleet, officials said, and had embarked from a Russian port shortly before the cables were cut." If confirmed, it would be the first known instance of a shadow fleet vessel being used to intentionally sabotage critical infrastructure in Europe — and, officials and experts said, a clear escalation by Russia in its conflict with the West... NATO's general secretary, Mark Rutte, responding to requests from the leaders of Finland and Estonia, both member nations, said the Atlantic alliance would "enhance" its military presence in the Baltic Sea...

Since Russia began assembling its fleet, the number of shadow vessels traversing the oceans has grown by hundreds and now makes up 17 percent of the total global oil tanker fleet... Nearly 70 percent of Russia's oil is being transported by shadow tankers, according to an analysis published in October by the Kyiv School of Economics Institute, a research organization based in Ukraine... The authorities in Finland are still investigating whether the "Eagle S" engaged in a criminal act. But the sheer size of the shadow fleet might have made using some of these vessels for sabotage irresistible to Russia, [said Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has researched and written about shadow fleets]...

While it's still not certain that this week's cable cutting was done intentionally, the Baltic Sea, for a number of reasons, is an ideal arena to carry out sabotage operations. It is relatively shallow and is crisscrossed with essential undersea cables and pipelines that provide energy, as well as internet and phone services, to a number of European countries that are NATO members. Russia has relatively unfettered access to the sea from several ports, and its commercial vessels, protected by international maritime law, can move around international waters largely unmolested... The suspicions that Russia was using shadow vessels for more than just escaping sanctions existed before this week's cable cutting. Last April, the head of Sweden's Navy told a local news outlet that there was evidence such ships were being used to conduct signals intelligence on behalf of Russia and that some fishing vessels had been spotted with antennas and masts not normally seen on commercial vessels. Since the war began, there has also been an uptick in suspicious episodes resulting in damage to critical undersea infrastructure...

Hours after Finland's energy grid operator alerted the police that an undersea power cable was damaged on Wednesday, Finnish officers descended by helicopter to the ship's deck and took over the bridge, preventing the vessel from sailing farther. By Friday, it remained at anchor in the Gulf of Finland, guarded by a Finnish Defense Forces missile boat and a Border Guard patrol vessel.
The cable incident happened just weeks after the EU issued new sanctions targetting Russia's shadow fleet, Euronews reports. "A handful of Chinese companies suspected of enabling Russia's production of drones are also blacklisted as part of the agreement, a diplomat told Euronews." The "shadow fleet" has been accused of deceptive practices, including transmitting falsified data and turning off their transporters to become invisible to satellite systems, and conducting multiple ship-to-ship transfers to conceal the origin of the oil barrels...

After a four-year hiatus, 2025 will see the return of the International Obfuscated C Code Contest. Started in 1984 (and inspired partly by a bug in the classic Bourne shell), it's "the Internet's oldest contest," acording to their official social media account on Mastodon.

The contest enters its "pending" state today at 2024-12-29 23:58 UTC — meaning an opening date for submissions has been officially scheduled (for January 31st) as well as a closing date roughly eight weeks later on April 1st, 2025. That's according to the newly-released (proposed and tentative) rules and guidelines, listing contest goals like "show the importance of programming style, in an ironic way" and "stress C compilers with unusual code." And the contest's home page adds an additional goal: "to have fun with C!"

Excerpts from the official rules: Rule 0
Just as C starts at 0, so the IOCCC starts at rule 0. :-)

Rule 1
Your submission must be a complete program....

Rule 5
Your submission MUST not modify the content or filename of any part of your original submission including, but not limited to prog.c, the Makefile (that we create from your how to build instructions), as well as any data files you submit....

Rule 6
I am not a rule, I am a free(void *human);
while (!(ioccc(rule(you(are(number(6)))))) {
ha_ha_ha();
}

Rule 6 is clearly a reference to The Prisoner... (Some other rules are even sillier...) And the guidelines include their own jokes: You are in a maze of twisty guidelines, all different.

There are at least zero judges who think that Fideism has little or nothing to do with the IOCCC judging process....

We suggest that you avoid trying for the 'smallest self-replicating' source. The smallest, a zero byte entry, won in 1994.
And this weekend there was also a second announcement: After a 4 year effort by a number of people, with over 6168+ commits, the Great Fork Merge has been completed and the Official IOCCC web site has been updated! A significant number of improvements has been made to the IOCCC winning entries. A number of fixes and improvements involve the ability of reasonable modern Unix/Linux systems to be able to compile and even run them.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader — and C programmer — achowe for sharing the news.