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Google braucht mehr Platz und mehr Beschäftigte in München, wo das Google Safety Engineering Center beheimatet ist. (Arbeit, Google)
Congressional report finds aerospace group cut corners.
Enlarge / A Boeing 737 MAX jet lands following a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) test flight at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, on June 29, 2020. A congressional report found a "disturbing pattern of technical miscalculations and troubling management misjudgments made by Boeing" with regard to the 737 Max. (credit: Jason Redmond | Getty Images)
Boeing hid design flaws in its 737 Max jet from both pilots and regulators as it raced to have the airplane certified as fit to fly, according to a damning congressional report into why two of the aircraft crashed within months of each other last year, killing 346 people.
The report by the US House of Representatives transport committee found the US aircraft maker cut corners and pressured regulators to overlook aspects of its new design in its attempts to catch up with European rival Airbus. It also accused US regulators of being too concerned with pleasing the company to exercise proper oversight.
The report said: “[The two crashes] were the horrific culmination of a series of faulty technical assumptions by Boeing’s engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeing’s management, and grossly insufficient oversight by the [Federal Aviation Administration]—the pernicious result of regulatory capture on the part of the FAA with respect to its responsibilities to perform robust oversight of Boeing and to ensure the safety of the flying public.
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Die Podcasts von Amazon sollen in Deutschland beliebte Inhalte bieten und international auch mit exklusiven Inhalten punkten. (Amazon, Podcast)
Realsatire: Schulanfang in Griechenland, ein Totalversagen
Following the arrest of a 24-year-old man in the UK late June, police used his pirate IPTV service to display a warning message to subscribers. To further press home the message that viewing pirate streams is illegal, police are now serving thousands of GE Hosting’s subscribers with cease-and-desist notices, referencing theoretical prosecutions under the Fraud Act.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Late June, officers from Norfolk and Suffolk Constabulary’s Cyber and Serious Organised Crime Unit arrested a 24-year-old man in the UK under suspicion of operating a pirate IPTV service.
The unique aspect of this operation was that the targeted service, GE Hosting (GE, Global Entertainment), was not only taken down but was replaced by a warning notice that was displayed on subscribers’ TV screens.
“This illegal stream has been seized By Norfolk and Sussex Police,” it began.
“Watching illegal broadcasts is a crime. Your IP address has been recorded. You are instructed to cease and desist immediately from all illegal media streaming.”
At the time, police did not mention that GE was the target but multiple sources informed TorrentFreak that it had indeed been taken down by the authorities. Now, however, customers of that service are being personally informed that their illegal subscriptions to GE Hosting have been noted by the police.
“This letter is intended as notification that Norfolk and Suffolk Constabulary Cyber, Intelligence and Serious Organised Crime Directorate are aware of your households use of an illegal TV streaming service, namely through a provider known as ‘GE Hosting’,” the letter reads.
“By providing this illegal service, the operators of GE Hosting have committed criminal offenses contrary to the Serious Crime Act, the Proceeds of Crime Act and the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, these are serious offenses which carry a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment.”
“Persons whom subscribe to services like the service provided by GE Hosting also commit a criminal offense contrary to s.11 of the Fraud Act which carries a maximum sentence of up to five years imprisonment, and/or a fine, and consequently results in a criminal record.”
“We are aware that you/members of your household have been subscribing to this illegal service.”
It isn’t yet clear whether the letter, which is reportedly being sent to thousands of subscribers, was delivered electronically or by physical mail. IPTV subscribers do not have to provide an accurate billing address but most people do hand over an active email address.
In any event, the letter notes that it is not a notification of police action or the beginning of an investigation or criminal prosecution. However, it does make it clear that the letter should be considered a formal cease-and-desist notice which dictates that the subscriber stops illegally streaming using the GE Hosting service.
Our understanding is that GE Hosting has already been shut down, a fact that was clarified as correct by Suffolk Police following our email inquiry this morning. As a technicality, therefore, a cease-and-desist notice isn’t needed as the service no longer exists. However, that obviously isn’t the point here.
Nationwide news of thousands of people receiving notices will send a strong message that IPTV subscribers’ personal details are just a step away from the police. More importantly, perhaps, the document clearly states that the authorities aren’t looking at copyright offenses, but those covered under the much more serious Fraud Act.
“Section 11 makes it an offense for any person, by any dishonest act, to obtain services for which payment is required, with intent to avoid payment. The person must know that the services are made available on the basis that they are chargeable, or that they might be,” the relevant legislation reads.
Section 11 also provides a clear-cut example, since it covers the situation “where a person attaches a decoder to her television to enable viewing access to cable / satellite television channels for which she has no intention of paying.”
Offenses under the section can be varied, from obtaining online services without paying for them, to people using false credit card details to access the same. However, another offense punishable under the Act (perhaps an interesting one given the Premier League’s interest in these cases) is the situation “where a person climbs over a wall and watches a football match without paying the entrance fee.”
While copyright charges would be available to the police, ‘fraud’ is a heavyweight term among the public. People tend to understand what fraud means and few would enjoy the worry of a fraud conviction hanging over them as it could be a life-changer, particularly career-wise.
GE Hosting is confirmed as closed, which makes it impossible for a letter recipient to breach the cease-and-desist order since it relates only to GE. However, police say that “subscribers shall be monitored” adding that police reserve the right to proceed to investigation and prosecution.
“If this type of unlawful activity continues then you will receive no further warnings before criminal enforcement is taken. This letter should therefore not be read as precluding enforcement if you fail to heed this cease and desist letter. The fact that this letter was sent to you could also be cited in future criminal proceedings.”
TorrentFreak asked Suffolk Police how this monitoring will be carried out but we are yet to receive a response. However, the fact that people have received a letter at all is quite remarkable.
As far as we’re aware and following the on-screen warning, this is another world first for Norfolk & Suffolk Constabulary, not to mention an intriguing escalation of the deterrent message in the UK.
A copy of the cease-and-desist, supplied by FACT, can be found here (pdf)
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
From 2009-2016, diesel Sprinter vans and Mercedes-Benz cars were emissions cheats.
Enlarge / A 1980s Mercedes-Benz diesel belches exhaust fumes in London. People expected diesel engines of this vintage to be dirty, but we had a right to expect that diesel engines sold over the past decade complied with emissions laws. Turns out, they don't. (credit: Richard Oliver/Getty Images)
In 2020 it seems more usual to read about the US Environmental Protection Agency rolling back pollution laws or arguing that big business should be allowed to do what it wants. But apparently the agency does occasionally work as intended. Earlier this week, together with the US Department of Justice and the California Air Resources Board, it held Daimler AG—parent company to Mercedes-Benz—accountable for selling diesel vehicles fitted with emissions defeat devices.
EPA and CARB found that all was not right with the Daimler's diesel engines in the wake of the 2015 Volkswagen emissions scandal. EPA told Daimler it was going to conduct some additional tests of the company's four- and six-cylinder diesel engines "using driving cycles and conditions that may reasonably be expected to be encountered in normal operation and use, for the purposes of investigating a potential defeat device."
In doing so, it discovered several auxiliary emission control devices that were not described in the homologation paperwork submitted by Daimler. In total, about 160,000 Sprinter vans and about 90,000 Mercedes-Benz vehicles are affected, between model years 2009 and 2016.
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Es ist noch nicht ganz klar, welchem Zweck die Datensammlung der Firma Shenzhen Zhenhua dienen könnte. Sicherheitsexperten sind besorgt. (Datenschutz, Datenbank)
Es ist noch nicht ganz klar, welchem Zweck die Datensammlung der Firma Shenzhen Zhenhua dienen könnte. Sicherheitsexperten sind besorgt. (Datenschutz, Datenbank) Have your 60fps-at-4K cake—and eat your ray-traced frosting, too.
Your new favorite $699 GPU—unless AMD has anything to say about it in October.
For some people, summarizing the Nvidia RTX 3080 difference may revolve around a slew of high-end—and sometimes proprietary—technologies. Ray tracing. Deep-learning super sampling. Crazy-fast memory bandwidth. In some cases, Nvidia's new $699 GPU is at its best when software leverages its very specific perks and features.
But as we all know, 2018's line of RTX 2000 GPUs left fans with high-priced options that didn't offer enough universally drool-worthy boosts. At the time, I called those cards "a ticket to the RTX lottery," and for nearly two years, the payoff was scant.
It's getting better—especially as DirectX 12 Ultimate and a pair of next-gen consoles finally lean into most of 2018's RTX-specific perks. AMD will soon cash in on this stuff with its own powerful RDNA 2 line of GPUs. Once Nvidia's RTX features feel less "proprietary," we should see them in more games—but that also leaves Nvidia to answer a question. Well, what else ya got?
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It’s no more and no less than three of the best 3D platformers ever made.
It's-a-me, big-eared Mario!
In the early '90s, Super Mario All-Stars was among the first titles to suggest that important old console games—like the early 2D Super Mario Bros. series—shouldn't be stranded on the obsolete hardware that originally hosted them. The collection also popularized the notion that older games could be improved with new technology while still preserving their original intent.
Now 27 years later, widespread backward compatibility and regular remasters (including those from Nintendo) have made that concept more de rigueur than revolutionary. Thus, Super Mario 3D All-Stars feels weirdly anti-climactic.
On the one hand, it's a collection of three of the best 3D platformers ever made (well, two-and-a-half of the best, at least) in a format that's more easily compatible with modern TVs and the Switch's convenient portable form factor. On the other hand, that's pretty much all it is.
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Nvidia hat mit der Geforce RTX 3080 die (Raytracing)-Grafikkarte abgeliefert, wie sie sich viele schon vor zwei Jahren erhofft hatten. Ein Test von Marc Sauter (Nvidia Ampere, Grafikhardware)
Nvidia hat mit der Geforce RTX 3080 die (Raytracing)-Grafikkarte abgeliefert, wie sie sich viele schon vor zwei Jahren erhofft hatten. Ein Test von Marc Sauter (Nvidia Ampere, Grafikhardware) 
Google braucht mehr Platz und mehr Beschäftigte in München, wo das Google Safety Engineering Center beheimatet ist. (
Die Podcasts von Amazon sollen in Deutschland beliebte Inhalte bieten und international auch mit exklusiven Inhalten punkten. (
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