Month: September 2021

Enlarge / A protester holds a placard outside an emergency meeting of the Brevard County, Florida School Board in Viera to discuss whether face masks in local schools should be mandatory. (credit: Getty | SOPA Images)

As Florida's stratospheric COVID-19 surge continues, Governor Ron DeSantis has appealed a judge's ruling last week that overturned the governor's ban on mask mandates in schools. The judge determined that DeSantis' ban didn't "meet constitutional muster."

In a notice of appeal filed Thursday, DeSanitis' lawyers claimed that the appeal should trigger an automatic stay, keeping the governor's mask mandate ban in place for now until the appeal is heard. However, as CNN reports, parents from six Florida counties have already filed an emergency notice to vacate the stay.

At least 13 school districts in Florida have already opted to institute school mask mandates, bucking the governor's legally imperiled ban.

• 

  The Pixel 3 XL. [credit: Ron Amadeo ]

A growing number of Pixel 3 and 3 XL users say their phones are dying an early death. For months, reports have been piling up on Google's issue tracker, support forums, and Reddit, all saying basically the same thing: one day, the phones suddenly stop working and become completely unresponsive. The phones can't boot into Android and will only show a Qualcomm recovery mode called "Emergency Download (EDL) mode."

The phones that display EDL mode are completely useless bricks. Some Googlers in the support thread are asking for Android-generated bug reports, which collect a ton of diagnostic data about running processes. But users can't submit those reports, because the phones won't boot into Android. The normal tricks used to flash a fresh version of Android onto the devices won't work, as users can't get out of EDL mode and into the normal bootloader, where they can use the standard, recommended flashing tools like "fastboot" or Google's slick, new browser-based Android Flash Tool.

EDL mode is rarely used in the Android hacking and recovery scene, but it's meant for recovery, presumably before any of the standard Android boot and recovery chain gets loaded onto the phone. When plugged into a PC, phones in EDL mode will identify as "QUSB_BULK_CID," followed by a serial number. The PC software that communicates with EDL mode is called "QPST," or the "Qualcomm Product Support Tool," and could theoretically attempt to flash a new copy of Android onto the Pixel 3, assuming you could get the full NAND image in the right format. Google admirably provides dozens of Pixel 3 system images for download, but they're meant for the normal Android flashing tools, not QPST.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Oscar Wong)

Apple said Friday that it will make some changes to its plan to have iPhones and other devices scan user photos for child-sexual-abuse images. But Apple said it still intends to implement the system after making "improvements" to address criticisms.

Apple provided this statement to Ars and other news organizations today:

Last month we announced plans for features intended to help protect children from predators who use communication tools to recruit and exploit them, and limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material [CSAM]. Based on feedback from customers, advocacy groups, researchers and others, we have decided to take additional time over the coming months to collect input and make improvements before releasing these critically important child safety features.

The statement is vague and doesn't say what kinds of changes Apple will make or even what kinds of advocacy groups and researchers it will collect input from. But given the backlash Apple has received from security researchers, privacy advocates, and customers concerned about privacy, it seems likely that Apple will try to address concerns about user privacy and the possibility that Apple could give governments broader access to customers' photos.