Month: April 2021

Enlarge / Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Miami on April 08, 2021. (credit: Joe Raedle / Getty)

Both houses of Florida's Republican-controlled legislature have passed new legislation banning social media companies from deplatforming political candidates or censoring large journalistic organizations. Gov. Ron DeSantis has expressed support for the bill and is expected to sign it into law.

Tech companies could be fined as much as $250,000 per day if they deplatform a statewide political candidate in the state. Critics argue that the bill is likely to be struck down as unconstitutional. That seems especially likely because the bill is broad and vaguely worded.

But at least one company won't have to worry about the legislation: Disney. A last-minute amendment to the bill provides that it doesn't apply to a "company that owns and operates a theme park or entertainment complex"—like Disney World.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

At least five US federal agencies may have experienced cyberattacks that targeted recently discovered security flaws that give hackers free rein over vulnerable networks, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said on Friday.

The vulnerabilities in Pulse Connect Secure, a VPN that employees use to remotely connect to large networks, include one that hackers had been actively exploiting before it was known to Ivanti, the maker of the product. The flaw, which Ivanti disclosed last week, carries a severity rating of 10 out of a possible 10. The authentication bypass vulnerability allows untrusted users to remotely execute malicious code on Pulse Secure hardware, and from there, to gain control of other parts of the network where it's installed.

Federal agencies, critical infrastructure, and more

Security firm FireEye said in a report published on the same day as the Ivanti disclosure that hackers linked to China spent months exploiting the critical vulnerability to spy on US defense contractors and financial institutions around the world. Ivanti confirmed in a separate post that the zeroday vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-22893, was under active exploit.

Enlarge / The White House, the South Lawn, and part of the Ellipse are seen from the observation deck of the Washington Monument on October 1, 2014, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty | Chip Somodevilla )

At least two US government officials in the Washington, DC, area have experienced mysterious health incidents that are strikingly similar to the brain-damaging “health attacks” that plagued US diplomats in Cuba beginning in 2016.

Last November, a National Security Council official reported being sickened while near the Ellipse, the White House’s large, oval-shaped southern lawn, according to a report by CNN. In a separate 2019 incident, a White House staff member said she also experienced something akin to a health attack while walking her dog in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC. The 2019 incident, which occurred just after Thanksgiving, was first reported by GQ last year. The magazine wrote at the time:

According to a government source familiar with the incident, the staffer passed a parked van. A man got out and walked past her. Her dog started seizing up. Then she felt it too: a high-pitched ringing in her ears, an intense headache, and a tingling on the side of her face.

The staffer also said she had experienced a similar incident just a few months earlier, in August of 2019, while she was traveling in London with then-National Security Adviser John Bolton. According to GQ, the staffer reported again feeling a tingling in the side of her head, which was facing the window of her hotel room, as well as intense pressure and ringing in her ears. All of those symptoms stopped when she left the room.

Enlarge / The NYPD's Digidog is just a Boston Dynamics robot in blue livery. (credit: Daniel Valls/FNTV freedomnews.tv)

The Guardian reports that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) is retiring "Digidog," a Boston Dynamics Spot robot the state started testing in December. The department described the robot as a tool that could be used to defuse dangerous situations and said it would help officers stay out of harm's way. In an environment where critics question the amount of resources police departments are given, having a state-of-the-art robot dog patrolling the streets of NYC drew a lot of negative attention and viral videos. The local ABC News affiliate reports that testing was supposed to continue until August.

With the robot set to be returned to Boston Dynamics, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he is "glad the Digidog was put down," adding through a spokesperson that the robot is "creepy, alienating, and sends the wrong message to New Yorkers." The police signed a $94,200 contract for the robot, about enough for one $74,500 spot unit and one 360-degree "Spot Cam" camera for $21,800. US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) argued that the money should be invested in communities instead, saying, "When was the last time you saw next-generation, world class technology for education, healthcare, housing, etc consistently prioritized for underserved communities like this?"

The high-tech robot police dog naturally sent imaginations running wild, but Spot is just a human-operated mobile camera, as opposed to an autonomous, weaponized dog version of RoboCop. Boston Dynamics' terms of sale prohibit weaponizing Spot, with the "prohibited uses" section (5.2) banning "intentional use of the Equipment to harm or intimidate any person or animal, as a weapon, or to enable any weapon." Rules are only good if they're enforced, though, and there's an argument to be made that police use of the robot counts as intimidation. Either way, arming the police with a $100,000 surveillance device did not earn the department a lot of praise.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | eccolo74)

Internet service providers today sued New York to block a state law that requires ISPs to sell $15-per-month broadband plans to low-income households.

The lawsuit was filed by lobby groups including USTelecom and CTIA-The Wireless Association, both of which count Verizon and AT&T among their members. Lobby groups for many other ISPs also joined the lawsuit, with plaintiffs including NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association, the Satellite Broadcasting & Communications Association, and the New York State Telecommunications Association. The biggest cable lobby group, NCTA, did not join the lawsuit, but a cable lobby group representing small providers—America's Communications Association—is one of the plaintiffs suing New York.

New York enacted its cheap-broadband law two weeks ago and called it a "first-in-the-nation requirement for affordable Internet for qualifying low-income families."

Enlarge / Red Bull is assuming control of its own engine development next year once Honda leaves the sport. But could we see Porsche badges on the cars before too long? The rumors won't stop swirling. (credit: Lars Baron/Getty Images)

Even though we're only two races in, this year's Formula 1 season is already shaping up to be the most competitive in years. Thanks to the resurgent Red Bull Racing, Mercedes-AMG has a real fight on its hands for the first time since the introduction of hybrid powertrains in 2014.

Red Bull is in the final year of a partnership with Honda, and the Japanese OEM has pulled out all the stops in an effort to leave the sport with a little glory. Starting next year, Red Bull will take over the engine program from Honda, developing its own engines à la Mercedes-AMG, Ferrari, and Alpine. But could we see the energy-drink team partner with Porsche?

Rumors that Volkswagen Group is going to enter F1, either through its Porsche or Audi brands, are almost ever-present in the sport. Both Porsche and Audi scaled back their factory racing efforts as a result of dieselgate and then the pandemic, although both companies are planning to return to endurance racing at Le Mans and here in the US by 2023.

Enlarge / Wind turbines spin as steam rises from the cooling towers of the Jäenschwalde coal-fired power plant in the distance. (credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Germany’s top court struck down part of the nation’s sweeping climate law, saying it violates people’s freedoms. 

By many standards, the law is aggressive, requiring the country to slash emissions 55 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. The country has already trimmed 35 percent of its carbon pollution, leaving just another 20 percent to be cut over the next nine years. And that’s where the court found fault with the law, saying that it left too much of the burden to future generations.

“The regulations irreversibly postpone high emission reduction burdens until periods after 2030,” the Constitutional Court wrote in a release explaining the ruling.