March 2023 – Page 41 – news.buyenne.com

TikTok CEO fails to convince Congress that the app is not a “weapon” for China

Passing a data privacy bill is “the only way to stop TikTok,” committee says.

TikTok Chief Executive Officer Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

For nearly five hours, Congress members of the House Committee on Energy & Commerce grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew over concerns about the platform's risks to minor safety, data privacy, and national security for American users.

“The American people need the truth about the threat TikTok poses to our national and personal security,” committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wa.) said in her opening statement, concluding that “TikTok is a weapon.”

Rodgers suggested that even for Americans who have never used the app, “TikTok surveils us all, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is able to use this as a tool to manipulate America as a whole.”

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Lilbits: aCropalypse now, GNOME 44, and Dynabook’s Raptor Lake laptops

A few days ago we learned that Google’s app for editing screenshots on Android phones had a vulnerability that makes it possible to recover the full image even after users had cropped a picture… which poses a potential privacy risk if you …

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Cloudstream Takes Site and Code Offline in Response to Hollywood Complaint

The operator of popular pirate streaming app Cloudstream has voluntarily taken down its code and disabled its website. The developer took action after the Motion Picture Association targeted the open-source Android app in a complaint filed at GitHub. The MPA hasn’t contacted the developer directly but the Hollywood group considers Cloudstream a prime enforcement target.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

cloudstream logo Legal video streaming services such as Amazon, Disney, and Netflix are booming. At the same time, there’s a flourishing dark market of pirate streaming tools.

These unauthorized alternatives increasingly use slick designs and easy-to-use apps to appeal to a broad audience. And unlike the legal options, they offer all popular titles under the same roof, without charging a penny.

Cloudstream is one of the apps that made its mark in recent years. The Android-based software can aggregate pirated content from several third-party sources and is fully customizable through open-source extensions.

This hasn’t gone unnoticed by rightsholders. Sky UK targeted the software last year and across the pond, Cloudstream also appeared on the radar of the MPA, Hollywood’s anti-piracy group.

MPA Targets Cloudstream

This week, the MPA decided to take action. The organization, which represents the major Hollywood studios and Netflix, sent a DMCA notice to GitHub, asking the developer platform to remove several Cloustream-related files.

“We […] request your assistance in addressing, the extensive copyright infringement of motion pictures and television shows that is occurring by virtue of the operation of the domain cloudstream.cf, which is hosted on and available for download from your repository GitHub Inc.

“Specifically, at the URL, the Repository hosts and offers for download the APK CloudStream, which in turn is used to engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows,” the notice adds.

When GitHub receives DMCA notices it typically informs developers of the targeted content, allowing them to address the problem on their own. That also happened in this instance and led to a drastic decision.

Cloudstream Takes Voluntary Action

Yesterday, Cloudstream developer “Lag” informed the app’s Discord followers that they had received a “very serious DMCA notice” that simply can’t be ignored. For that reason, the team will voluntarily remove the contested files from GitHub.

According to “Lag”, complying with the takedown request was the only viable option. The developer didn’t wait for GitHub to respond and decided to pull the plug, hoping to avoid legal repercussions.

“Having the absolute worst anti-piracy coalition on our asses is not preferable. They will undoubtedly fuck us legally if they have to. Think what you want but I do not want all of Hollywood after me because of some hobby project,” Lag wrote.

“At least they will never be able to shut down torrents :)”

Cloudstream explains on Discord that it will comply with MPA's DMCA notice

The MPA’s DMCA notice also mentioned the Cloudstream.cf domain, which has gone offline too, and remains unreachable for the foreseeable future.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, “Lag” explains that the site linked to the reported repositories and was taken down for that reason. The developer is still waiting to hear from GitHub to see if his removal actions are sufficient, before making choosing how to go forward. However, challenging the MPA isn’t on the table.

A Prime Enforcement Target

The MPA’s head of Global Content Protection and Enforcement Operations, Jan van Voorn, confirmed the legitimacy of the takedown request, adding that it hasn’t contacted the developer directly, yet.

“The popularity of Cloudstream’s website, which received millions of visits in the last few months alone, and its Discord channel, with over 46,000 members, naturally made it appear on our radar as a prime target for enforcement,” Van Voorn says.

As we publish this article, all of the reported GitHub URLs are unreachable. Most return a 404 error, indicating that the developer removed the content voluntarily. In addition, a repo from ‘third-party’ developer “Eddy976” displays a DMCA removal notice, so GitHub likely intervened there.

Given the immediate response of developer “Lag”, it seems unlikely that they will stage a comeback under the same team. However, the door remains open for an external restart, according to the Discord message.

“The project may be handed off to another development team within a couple of days so I would refrain from calling it over yet,” Lag wrote.

That will likely ensure the MPA’s continued interest.

—

A copy of the MPA’s DMCA notice to GitHub is available here. Below is a list of all the targeted URLs.

_{https://raw.githubusercontent.com/recloudstream/cloudstream-extensions/builds/repo.json

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/recloudstream/cloudstream-extensionsmultilingual/builds/repo.json

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hexated/cloudstream-extensions-hexated/builds/repo.json

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yoyzo/arab/builds/repo.json

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Jacekun/cs3xxx-repo/main/repo.json

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/daarkdemon/cs-darkdemon-extensions/builds/repo.json

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LikDev-256/likdev256-tamil-providers/builds/repo.json

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Stormunblessed/kamy-cs3/master/repo.json

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Eddy976/cloudstream-extensions-eddy/builds/repo.json

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Stormunblessed/stormunblessed-cs3/master/repo.json

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/821938089/cloudstream-extensions/master/repo.json

https://github.com/recloudstream/cloudstream-extensions

https://github.com/recloudstream/plugin-template

https://github.com/yoyzo/arab

https://github.com/Eddy976/cloudstream-extensions-eddy}

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Meta slams telco fee proposal, says ISPs should pay their own network costs

Meta: “Our investments in content drive the business model of telecom operators.”

Illustration of fiber cables with colored lights on the ends.

Proposals to pay for broadband networks by imposing new fees on Big Tech companies "are built on a false premise," Meta executives wrote in a blog post today.

"Network fee proposals do not recognize that our investments in content drive the business model of telecom operators," Meta executives Kevin Salvadori and Bruno Cendon Martin wrote. Meta's comments came a few weeks after Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters spoke out against the proposal being reviewed by European regulators.

Meta executives said telecom operators and content application providers (CAPs) "are symbiotic businesses, occupying different but complementary roles in the digital ecosystem. Every year, Meta invests tens of billions of euros in our apps and platforms—such as Facebook, Instagram, and Quest—to facilitate the hosting of content. Billions of people go online every day to access this content, creating the demand that allows telecom operators to charge people for Internet access. Our investment in content literally drives the revenue and business model of telecom operators."

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Missouri House advances bill to limit nonexistent vaccine microchips—just in case

The bill aims to stop COVID vaccine mandates while promoting conspiracy theories.

A person wearing a tinfoil hat on September 20, 2019.

In the latest efforts by Republican lawmakers to enshrine into law Americans' right to freely spread deadly infectious diseases to each other, the Missouri House this week advanced a bill that would bar governments, schools, and employers from mandating certain vaccines—as well as things like vaccine microchips, which do not exist.

The bill, HB 700 (PDF), was sponsored by Rep. Bill Hardwick, a Republican from Waynesville. Hardwick told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he believed people "lost their minds" during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that legally barring officials and employers from requiring life-saving vaccination, even among health care workers, feels "like it's the right thing to do."

The bill specifically bars requirements for people to receive COVID-19 vaccines. But it doesn't stop there. It also bars any requirements for people to receive "a dose of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)," thus barring requirements for any future mRNA-based vaccines, should they be needed in upcoming pandemics or outbreaks. It also bars requirements for "any treatment or procedure intended or designed to edit or alter human deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or the human genome," and "any mechanical or electronic device" that would be placed "under the skin."

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Daily Deals (3-23-2023)

The Epic Games Store is giving away two more games for free this week. Humble Bundle has a deal on Attack on Titan digital comics. And if you’ve had your eye on the LG Gram line of thin and light laptops, but didn’t want to pay full price,…

The post Daily Deals (3-23-2023) appeared first on Liliputing.

There’s a simpler answer to ‘Oumuamua’s weird orbit: Outgassing hydrogen

‘Oumuamua is “a standard interstellar comet that just experienced heavy processing.”

An artist's depiction of the interstellar comet 'Oumuamua,

In late 2017, our Solar System received its very first known interstellar visitor: a bizarre cigar-shaped object hurtling past at 44 kilometers per second, dubbed 'Oumuamua (Hawaiian for "messenger from afar arriving first"). Was it a comet? An asteroid? A piece of alien technology? Scientists have been puzzling over the origin and unusual characteristics of 'Oumuamua ever since, most notably its strange orbit, and suggesting various models to account for them.

But perhaps the answer is much simpler than previously thought. That's the conclusion of a new paper published in the journal Nature. The authors suggest that 'Oumuamua's odd behavior is the result of the outgassing of hydrogen as the icy body warmed in the vicinity of the Sun—a simple mechanism common among icy comets.

As we reported previously, 'Oumuamua was first discovered by the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS1 telescope, part of NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations program to track asteroids and comets that come into Earth's vicinity. Other telescopes around the world soon kicked into action, measuring the object's various characteristics.

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Tech makers must provide repairs for up to 10 years under proposed EU law

Proposal doesn’t enforce affordable spare parts, manuals, rights group complains.

DIY repair mobile phone at home. Woman repairing mobile phone at home, changing damaged part.

Makers of numerous product categories, including TVs, vacuums, smartphones, and tablets, could be required to enable repairs for their products for up to 10 years after purchase, depending on the device type. The European Commission on Wednesday announced a proposal it has adopted that would implement long-term repair requirements on electronics makers, if the European Parliament and Council approve it.

The regulation would apply to any devices with repairability requirements in the EU, including vacuum cleaners, washer-dryers, welding equipment, servers, and data-storage devices. The EU is currently hammering out right to repair requirements for smartphones and tablets.

Already, the EU requires vendors to repair or replace products within two years of purchase for free if the product is defective. The new regulation would require companies to provide a free repair (instead of replacing the product) if doing so would be the same price or cheaper than replacing it.

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Framework introduces a 16 inch modular laptop with upgradeable discrete graphics and customizable keyboard and input options

Framework has been selling modular, repairable, and upgradeable laptops with 13.5 inch displays since 2021. But while you can replace the mainboard, battery, and most other components, there are a few things that are hard to do without introducing a n…

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“Click-to-cancel” rule would penalize companies that make you cancel by phone

Canceling a subscription shouldn’t be harder than signing up, FTC proposal says.

Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan standing on a stage.

Canceling a subscription should be just as easy as signing up for the service, the Federal Trade Commission said in a proposed "click-to-cancel" rule announced today. If approved, the plan "would put an end to companies requiring you to call customer service to cancel an account that you opened on their website," FTC commissioners said.

The FTC said the click-to-cancel rule would require sellers "to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up," and "go a long way to rescuing consumers from seemingly never-ending struggles to cancel unwanted subscription payment plans for everything from cosmetics to newspapers to gym memberships."

The FTC said the proposed rule would be enforced with civil penalties and let the commission return money to harmed consumers.

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