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Hack of the European Medicines Agency affects vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
Information relating to the one of the most promising coronavirus vaccines has been “unlawfully accessed” following a hack on the European regulatory body that’s in the final stages of approving it, the firms jointly developing the vaccine said on Wednesday.
The European Medicines Agency based in Amsterdam first disclosed the breach. The statement said only that the EMA had been subject to a cyberattack and that it had begun a joint investigation along with law enforcement. The agency didn’t say when the hack happened or whether the attackers sought vaccine information, tried to infect the network with ransomware, or wanted to pursue some other purpose. An EMA spokesperson said in an email that “the Agency is fully functional and work continues.”
Around the same time on Wednesday, pharmaceutical company Pfizer and biotech company BioNTech, issued a joint release that said, “Today, we were informed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) that the agency has been subject to a cyber attack and that some documents relating to the regulatory submission for Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, which has been stored on an EMA server, had been unlawfully accessed.”
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It would offer much higher energy density and much faster charging.
Enlarge / One of the playing-card-sized, single-layer cells QuantumScape used for testing. (credit: QuantumScape)
All modern lithium-ion batteries are, in a way, a compromise. The original concept was a “lithium metal” battery, which could hold substantially more energy in the same volume. There was just one small problem: they invariably self-destruct. But this week, a long-watched battery-tech company announced that it believes to have solved this problem. If what the company shows is accurate, this is a big deal.
First, a brief primer. Lithium batteries shuttle lithium ions from the cathode to the anode during charging, harvesting energy as the ions return to their home in the cathode material. This requires a separator in the middle that only lets lithium ions through, and it requires a conductive electrolyte. In a lithium-metal battery, the shuttling lithium ions simply form pure metallic lithium on the anode side. But the lithium has a tendency to form branching needle-like structures called dendrites that can pierce through to the cathode, causing the battery to short. And since the liquid electrolytes used in these batteries are flammable, bad things happen when they short.
The solution was to utilize a graphite anode. The orderly structure of graphite makes a good hotel for lithium ions, which safely check into a room for their stay during charging. This greatly reduces the risk of dendrite formation. But this graphite can take up nearly half the volume of the cell without adding additional energy storage. This makes the battery work safely but dilutes its performance.
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Facebook wasn’t the first social network – remember MySpace and Friendster? And it’s not exactly the last one standing. Twitter’s still a thing. But Facebook is the biggest, most influential social network in the US, at least&#…
Facebook wasn’t the first social network – remember MySpace and Friendster? And it’s not exactly the last one standing. Twitter’s still a thing. But Facebook is the biggest, most influential social network in the US, at least… and according to new lawsuits filed by the FTC and 48 attorneys general, Facebook abused its market dominance […]
The post Lilbits: Facebook faces antitrust suits, Google plans big changes for Chrome, and Adobe Flash is finally (almost) dead appeared first on Liliputing.
Several controversial copyright bills are reportedly being added to the US ‘must-pass’ spending bill. This includes the CASE Act and a proposal to make streaming piracy a felony. Tech companies and civil rights groups are calling on lawmakers to reject these plans.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Next week, US lawmakers are expected to present the spending bill that keeps the government running.
This ‘must pass’ legislation, also known as the appropriations bill, is often padded in order to get unrelated proposals passed before the end of the year.
While the official content remains unknown at the time of writing, several groups and organizations are already sounding the alarm bell. Based on sources, there is fear that several controversial pieces of copyright legislation will be tagged on.
The CASE Act is one of the bills that may be added. Short for “Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement,” it proposes to establish a copyright claim tribunal within the United States Copyright Office.
If adopted, the new board will provide an option to resolve copyright disputes outside the federal courts, which significantly reduces the associated costs. As such, it aims to make it easier for smaller creators, such as photographers, to address copyright infringements.
Opponents fear that the new tribunal will trigger an avalanche of claims against ordinary Internet users, with potential damages of up to $30,000 per case. While targeted people have the choice to opt-out, many simply have no clue what to do, they argue.
Despite fierce protests, the CASE Act passed the House with an overwhelming majority last year. And now it is possibly being added to the spending bill, Techdirt reports, which means that it could soon become law.
Another controversial proposal that may end up in the spending bill should sound familiar too. Protocol writes that Senator Thom Tillis will, once again, is trying to make streaming piracy a felony.
Under current law, unauthorized streaming is categorized as a public performance instead of distribution, which is punishable as a misdemeanor, not a felony. Lawmakers tried to change this with the SOPA and PIPA bills but these didn’t pass. The plan never completely disappeared, however.
Earlier this year it gained momentum again in Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property. Senator Tillis, who chairs the subcommittee, has reportedly picked up the baton and added the proposal to the spending bill.
In addition to the two aforementioned pieces of legislation, the Trademark Modernization Act is also on the list of additions. Together, these bills present a volatile mix of copyright-related plans that should not be rushed through, opponents warn.
A group of civil rights groups, tech companies, libraries and educators recently shared their concerns in a letter (pdf) to the U.S. Senate.
“We write to you today regarding recently reported efforts to include a package of intellectual property bills in the year-end spending bill that includes the CASE Act, the Trademark Modernization Act and a felony streaming proposal,” it begins.
The signatories, including the CCIA, the Internet Archive, the Internet Association, the Library Copyright Alliance, and the Center for Democracy & Technology, warn that these proposals will have negative impacts on many organizations and Internet users in general.
“All signatories have serious concerns with at least some aspect of the bills slated to be included in their current state, and we stand ready to work with Congress to avoid their unintended consequences,” the letter reads.
“In order to allow that process to take place, we ask that you decline to include this package of bills in any must-pass government funding bill, and instead allow these bills to be considered through the regular order process.”
While the addition of the controversial plans have yet to be confirmed, the opposition is already in full swing. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for example, is calling on the public to urge senators not to pass the CASE Act.
“The CASE Act could mean Internet users facing $30,000 penalties for sharing a meme or making a video. It has no place in must-pass legislation,” EFF writes.
If these three proposals are indeed added to the spending bill, more opposition is likely to follow. That said, the bills also have substantial support in the creative industries, so there will be plenty of backing as well.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
It’s almost certainly going to be a long and ugly legal fight.
Enlarge / Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are the three largest parts of Facebook's extremely sprawling empire... for now. (credit: Rafael Henrique | SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images)
The Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of 47 states attorneys general today filed a pair of long-awaited antitrust suits against Facebook, alleging that the company abused its power in the marketplace to neutralize competitors through acquisitions and prevent anyone else from presenting a more privacy-friendly alternative to consumers.
"By using its vast troves of data and money, Facebook has quashed or hindered what the company perceived as potential threats," New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the states' effort, said. "In an effort to maintain its market dominance, Facebook has employed a strategy to impede competing services."
The lawsuit brought by the states (PDF) asks the court to prohibit Facebook from engaging in "any anticompetitive conduct" or practice going forward. That includes a request for Facebook to be blocked from any acquisitions valued at greater than $10 million without first getting permission from the states.
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Fuchsia has been in development for four years now.
Here's what Fuchsia looked like in 2018. This is the home screen in phone mode. [credit: Ron Amadeo ]
Google's super secret, experimental in-development operating system, Fuchsia, is still alive. Google recently put out a blog post titled "Expanding Fuchsia's open source model" announcing that the company is now accepting public contributions and bug fixes for whatever this OS ends up being. There is now a public mailing list, a public bug tracker, and even a roadmap.
Google says it has "been developing Fuchsia in the open, in our git repository for the last four years." That's not quite how I would describe the development process. After we compiled Fuchsia and got it running on a Pixelbook, the Fuchsia team scrubbed the repo of the user interface. I would guess Fuchsia has a similar setup to Android, with a public-facing repository full of the bits Google is willing to disclose, and a private repo where all the interesting stuff happens. Either that or Google has done zero interface work in the last two years, and Fuchsia development is slower than anyone was expecting—I don't see any user interface code in the repo. There is a public bug tracker, but many of the bugs are labeled "Restrict-View-Google" and are not visible to non-employees.
The blog post includes what might be the first official picture of Fuchsia: a thrilling gif of a command line running a "Hello World" app:
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Small form-factor desktop computer company Simply NUC has introduces two new computers that look nearly identical on the outside, but which feature different hardware on the inside. The Simply NUC Topaz is a mini PC with an Intel Tiger Lake processor,…
Small form-factor desktop computer company Simply NUC has introduces two new computers that look nearly identical on the outside, but which feature different hardware on the inside. The Simply NUC Topaz is a mini PC with an Intel Tiger Lake processor, Intel Xe graphics, and a starting price of $559, while the Simply NUC Ruby is available […]
The post Simply NUC launches Ruby and Topaz mini PCs (with Ryzen 4000 and Tiger Lake chips) appeared first on Liliputing.
Not only does the whole state share one password, but it’s posted publicly.
Enlarge / Florida's apparently being a little too welcoming at the moment. (credit: iLLiePhotography | Getty Images)
Florida police said a raid they conducted Monday on the Tallahassee home of Rebekah Jones, a data scientist the state fired from her job in May, was part of an investigation into an unauthorized access of a state emergency-responder system. It turns out, however, that not only do all state employees with access to that system share a single username and password, but also those credentials are publicly available on the Internet for anyone to read.
Jones on Monday shared a video of the police raid on her house as part of a Twitter thread in which she explained the police were serving a search warrant on her house following a complaint from the Department of Health. That complaint, in turn, was related to a message sent to Florida emergency responders back in November.
About 1,700 members of Florida's emergency-response team received the communication on November 10, according to the affidavit (PDF) cited in the search warrant for Jones' home. The message urged recipients to "speak up before another 17,000 people are dead. You know this is wrong. You don’t have to be a part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it's too late."
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Pornhub will only allow uploads by verified users, bans downloads of most videos.
Enlarge / A Pornhub logo at the company's booth during the 2018 AVN Adult Expo on January 25, 2018, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (credit: Getty Images | Gabe Ginsberg )
Pornhub said it has banned uploads by unidentified users in an attempt to prevent "non-consensual material" and videos of children being sexually abused.
"Going forward, we will only allow properly identified users to upload content," the pornographic-video-sharing website said in a statement yesterday. For now, "only content partners and people within the Model Program will be able to upload content to Pornhub. In the new year, we will implement a verification process so that any user can upload content upon successful completion of identification protocol."
Pornhub also said it is removing the ability to download content from the site "with the exception of paid downloads within the verified Model Program. In tandem with our fingerprinting technology, this will mitigate the ability for content already removed from the platform to be able to return." The Model Program that has existed for at least a few years requires verification by Pornhub staff to prove "that you are real and that you are the one uploading your own videos."
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Facebook wird in den USA wegen unfairer Wettbewerbspraktiken verklagt. Die FTC fordert einen Verkauf von Tochterfirmen wie Instagram oder Whatsapp. (
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