Month: February 2022

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Ars Technica)

All too often, digital ads wind up improperly targeting the most vulnerable people online, including abuse victims and kids. Add to that list the customers of several digital-medicine and genetic-testing companies, whose sites used ad-tracking tools that could have exposed information about people's health status.

In a recent study from researchers at Duke University and the patient privacy-focused group the Light Collective, 10 patient advocates who are active in the hereditary cancer community and cancer support groups on Facebook—including three who are Facebook group admins—downloaded and analyzed their data from the platform's "Off Facebook Activity" feature in September and October. The tool shows what information third parties are sharing with Facebook and its parent company Meta about your activity on other apps and websites. Along with the retail and media sites that typically show up in these reports, the researchers found that several genetic-testing and digital-medicine companies had shared customer information with the social media giant for ad targeting.

Further analysis of those websites—using tracker identification tools like the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Privacy Badger and The Markup's Blacklight—revealed which ad tech modules the companies had embedded on their sites. The researchers then checked the companies' privacy policies to see whether they permitted and disclosed this type of cross-site tracking and the flow of data to Facebook that can result. In three of the five cases, the companies' policies did not have clear language about third-party tools that might be used to retarget or reidentify users across the web for marketing.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | imaginima)

The Internal Revenue Service is dropping a controversial facial recognition system that requires people to upload video selfies when creating new IRS online accounts.

"The IRS announced it will transition away from using a third-party service for facial recognition to help authenticate people creating new online accounts," the agency said today. "The transition will occur over the coming weeks in order to prevent larger disruptions to taxpayers during filing season. During the transition, the IRS will quickly develop and bring online an additional authentication process that does not involve facial recognition."

The IRS has been using the third-party system ID.me for facial recognition of taxpayers. Privacy and civil rights advocates and lawmakers from both major parties have objected to the system. The IRS wasn't demanding ID.me verification for filing tax returns but was requiring it for accessing related services, such as account information, applying for payment plans online, requesting transcripts, and the Child Tax Credit Update Portal.

Enlarge / The 2020 iPhone SE. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Once again, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has published a predictive report. This time, Bloomberg's sources have shared details on Apple's upcoming Spring event.

The report claims that Apple will host this year's event on March 8, which is a little earlier than usual. And the report names four major announcements expected at the event. In contrast to some of Gurman's recent newsletters, he cites sources familiar with Apple's plans, lending the report some credibility.

The Apple event will feature a new iPhone SE model with 5G capabilities, as has long been rumored. The sources also say the mid-range smartphone will have a faster processor and an improved camera, but it won't feature a radical new design.

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

In the interest of combating ransomware and other malware, Microsoft is planning a major change in how its Office software handles macros: when files that use macros are downloaded from the Internet, those macros will now be disabled entirely by default. Current versions of the software offer an alert banner on these kinds of files that can be clicked through, but the new version of the banner offers no way to enable the macros.

The change will be previewed starting in April in Office version 2203, before being rolled out to all users of the continuously updated Microsoft 365 version of Office starting in June. The change will also be enabled for all currently supported standalone versions of Office, including versions 2021, 2019, 2016, and 2013. The Mac, iOS, Android, and web versions of Office won't be affected.

Office can track which macros were downloaded from the Internet or from a networked share using a "Zone.Identifier" tag, at least when the file is saved to an NTFS volume. This so-called "mark-of-the-web" (MOTW) is already used in Office—if you've ever downloaded a document or spreadsheet and been informed that editing has been disabled by default, thank an MOTW. When Office sees a mark-of-the-web tag, the program opens that file in read-only Protected View mode just in case the file is malicious.

Enlarge / In the metaverse the actual boundaries will be invisible, but the results will be the same. (credit: Meta)

In the real world, the idea of personal space is ingrained from a young age and enforced mainly by unspoken interpersonal contract and subtle social pressure. In the world of virtual reality, on the other hand, Facebook parent Meta is now using software enforce a four-foot zone of "personal space" for each avatar in its metaverse-style social spaces.

As detailed in a recent blog post, Meta's Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues spaces now include a default personal boundary that "prevents avatars from coming within a set distance of each other, creating more personal space for people and making it easier to avoid unwanted interactions."

Circle of Protection: Metaverse. (credit: Meta)

The system in effect sets up an invisible cylinder with a two-foot radius that surrounds each avatar; if user movement would cause two cylinders to overlap, "the system will halt their forward movement as they reach the boundary" without any other overt feedback. Two users will be able to jointly reach outside their personal boundary for interactions like a high-five or fist-bump, Meta writes. Having the system on by default will "help to set behavioral norms—and that's important for a relatively new medium like VR," Meta writes.

Enlarge / This song sparrow would be a better parent if the ravens would just shut up. (credit: Reed Kaestner)

On paper, predators and prey have a pretty straightforward relationship when it comes to population totals. A lion kills a zebra, so there's one less zebra in a herd. However, new research suggests that predators might have a deeper, longer-lasting effect on their prospective meals: fear.

This fear of predators can impact the reproductive success of prey animals, a team from Canada's Western University argues. The team, headed by wife and husband researchers Liana Zanette and Michael Clinchy at Western's biology department, came to its conclusions after performing an experiment on free-living wild song sparrows. The study's authors say there's reason to believe that the phenomenon they found among the sparrows would be present in other species as well—at least in birds and mammals that care for their offspring.

"The presence of the predator is actually dramatically changing the behavior of the prey to a degree and over a period that it can actually affect the prey population," Clinchy told Ars.

Enlarge / The atoms (center foreground) alter a laser so it extracts energy from a membrane (blue). (credit: Departement Physik, Universität Basel)

Way back when I was still working in the lab, there was a lot of buzz about something called "coherent control." The basic idea was to take the principles of traditional control theory—the same theory that makes things like cruise control work—and apply them to quantum systems.

Some very cool ideas and insights came out of that early work, but it has taken a while to put them into practice. Now, we might be starting to see some practical applications emerging, with researchers demonstrating in a new paper the active cooling of a membrane using coherent control.

Measurement is bad

A traditional control system has something like a desired state, such as the target speed of a car. By repeatedly measuring the speed of a car and accelerating or decelerating, the control system can bring the car to the target speed.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Wi-Fi 6E is the latest wireless tech standard, but due to components shortages, it wouldn't be surprising if you never end up with a Wi-Fi 6E router or other supported tech and instead jump straight to the next generation, Wi-Fi 7.

Components shortages, which have hindered the availability of everything from graphics cards to Chromebooks, monitor panels, and integrated circuits for Wi-Fi, have impacted Wi-6E availability and adoption, telecommunications analyst Dell'Oro Group said in a statement released Thursday, as reported by Tom's Hardware on Saturday.

“Although manufacturers launched Wi-Fi 6E products in mid-2021, products are either not available or they are in very limited supply," Tam Dell’Oro, the founder and CEO of the firm, said in a statement. Dell'Oro added that Wi-Fi shipments are "significantly limited because of supply constraints," except in China.