An anonymous reader shares a report: There was speculation that Samsung could use smartphone-to-satellite technology in its Galaxy S23 much like Apple has for the iPhone 14, but that didn't happen in the end. Now, the company has unveiled a new standardized 5G NTN (non-terrestrial network) modem that will enable two-way communication between smartphones and satellites. The technology will allow users to send and receive calls, text messages and data without the need for a cellular network, and will be integrated into Samsung's future Exynos chips.

The aim is to allow people in mountains, deserts or other remote areas to communication with others in critical situations. 5G NTN conforms to 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP Release 17) standards, meaning it works with traditional communication services from chip manufacturers, smartphone makers and telecoms. However, Samsung indicated that the tech could eventually be used to transmit high-definition photos and even video, on top of texts and calls.

The U.S. Supreme Court, hearing a case that could reshape the internet, considered on Tuesday whether Google bears liability for user-generated content when its algorithms recommend videos to users. From a news writeup: In the case, Gonzalez vs, Google, the family of a terrorist attack victim contends that YouTube violated the federal Anti-Terrorism Act because its algorithm recommended ISIS videos to users, helping to spread their message. Nohemi Gonzalez was an American student killed in a 2015 ISIS attack in Paris, and his family's lawsuit challenges the broad legal immunity that tech platforms enjoy for third party content posted on their sites. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, protects platforms from legal action over user-generated content, and it also protects them if they choose to remove content. Section 230 has withstood court challenges for the past three decades even as the internet exploded.

The attorney for Gonzalez's family claimed that YouTube's recommendations fall outside the scope of Section 230, as it is the algorithms, not the third party, that actively pick and choose where and how to present content. In this case, the attorney said, it enhanced the ISIS message. "Third parties that post on YouTube don't direct their videos to specific users," said the Gonzalez's attorney Eric Schnapper. Instead, he said, those are choices made by the platform. Justice Neil Gorsuch said he was '"not sure any algorithm is neutral. Most these days are designed to maximize profit." [...] Internet firms swear that removing or limiting 230 protections would destroy the medium. Would it? Chief Justice John Roberts asked Google's attorney Lisa Blatt. "Would Google collapse and the internet be destroyed if Google was prevented from posting what it knows is defamatory?" She said, "Not Google," but other, smaller websites, yes. She said if the plaintiffs were victorious, the internet would become a zone of extremes -- either The Truman Show, where things are moderated into nothing, or like "a horror show," where nothing is.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As part of the state's biennial budget process, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called on the state legislature to provide $350 million to create and fund a Texas Space Commission for the next two years. "With companies seeking to expand space travel in coming years, continued development of the space industry in the state will ensure Texas remains at the forefront not only in the United States, but the entire world," Abbott stated in his budget document for the 88th Legislature. "Further investment will cement Texas as the preeminent location for innovation and development in this rapidly growing industry. Due to increased competition from other states and internationally, further planning and coordination is needed to keep Texas at the cutting edge." Texas has a historic budget surplus this year due to oil prices, inflation, and other factors driving economic growth. The state is projected to have $188.2 billion available in general revenue for funding the business of the state over the 2024-2025 period, a surplus of $32.7 billion over spending during the previous two years.

In their initial drafts, both the House and the Senate budget bills for this legislative session include the full $350 million in funding for a space commission. The initiative is being led by the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Texas Rep. Greg Bonnen, whose district just south of Houston is adjacent to NASA's Johnson Space Center. A source said the bill "has all of the support it needs to pass" from leaders in both the House and Senate. Bonnen's office did not specify what the Texas Space Commission will address, including how the money would be spent. A second source in the Texas Legislature told Ars that details about the commission's funding priorities were expected to be worked out later in the legislative session, which ends on May 29.

However, the framework for the proposed space commission appears to have been prepared by a Houston-based workforce-development organization called TexSpace, which published an annual report in December calling for the creation of such a commission. According to this document, the commission would "focus on policy and arranging statewide strategy by monitoring local, state, and federal policies and opportunities and establishing an economic ecosystem for Texas' space enterprises." It would include 15 members, including those appointed by political officials, as well as an appointee each from SpaceX and Blue Origin. [...] The commission will likely seek to ensure that SpaceX and Blue Origin continue to grow their presence in the state and to nurture other, smaller startups. "Compared to the Texas proposal, Space Florida has a modest annual budget of $12.5 million," notes Ars.

"Florida leaders made the brilliant decision to invest in the commercial space industry years ago, and that investment has paid off," Anna Alexopoulos Farrar, a vice president of communications for Space Florida, told Ars. "Space Florida alone had a $5.9 billion economic impact on the state over the past 15 years, and we project a $1.1 billion impact every year starting this year. It's not surprising that other states want to emulate our proven model, and we welcome the challenge from our friends in Texas -- competition yields the best outcomes for both businesses and taxpayers."

The government agency responsible for tracking down contaminated peanut butter and defective pacemakers is taking on a new health hazard: online misinformation. From a report: It's an unlikely role for the Food and Drug Administration, a sprawling, century-old bureaucracy that for decades directed most its communications toward doctors and corporations. But FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf has spent the last year warning that growing "distortions and half-truths" surrounding vaccines and other medical products are now "a leading cause of death in America."

"Almost no one should be dying of COVID in the U.S. today," Califf told The Associated Press, noting the government's distribution of free vaccines and antiviral medications. "People who are denying themselves that opportunity are dying because they're misinformed." Califf, who first led the agency under President Barack Obama, said the FDA could once rely on a few communication channels to reach Americans. "We're now in a 24/7 sea of information without a user guide for people out there in society," Califf said. "So this requires us to change the way we communicate."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Now that the Safe Connections Act (SCA) has become law, the Federal Communications Commission is taking steps to help domestic violence survivors leave their partners' phone plans. The agency has proposed rules that would require carriers separate the line for a survivor within two business days of a request. Another proposal would also have carriers hide contact with abuse hotlines from consumer-facing call and text logs.

The FCC also hopes to use the Lifeline or Affordable Connectivity Program to support survivors enduring financial hardships for up to six months. Separately, providers are teaming with the National Domestic Violence Hotline to ensure survivors leaving a family plan will get in touch with someone who can offer support from experts on abuse. The proposals are entering a public comment phase and may be modified when they take effect as required by the SCA.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: A drug aimed at treating eyes immobilized sperm and prevented pregnancy in mice, encouraging researchers that it might work as a contraceptive for men. Injected into male mice, the drug was 100% effective in preventing pregnancy for 2 1/2 hours and about 91% effective for up to 3 1/2 hours, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. The male mice were fertile after a day, the study found. The new approach is appealing for how quickly the contraceptive acts. The researchers said they would test the drug in other animals and aim for human trials in the coming years.

The drug presented in Tuesday's study acts by deactivating an enzyme in mice and men that make sperm swim. "It's like your on-switch on your TV," said Jochen Buck, a pharmacologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, an author of the study. When the researchers added the drug to human and mice sperm in a dish, the cells stopped moving temporarily. Lower doses of the drug resulted in progressively more mobile sperm cells, Dr. Buck said. The drug took about 15 minutes to take effect. Male mice injected with the drug didn't alter their mating behavior. Allowed to mate in the 2.5 hours after injection, none of 52 pairs of mice produced offspring. A third of mice partners in a control group of 50 had pregnancies. Mice given the drug were later able to father healthy pups, the study said.

President Biden's long-stalled nominee to the Federal Communications Commission fired back at her critics today, saying that the telecom industry shouldn't be allowed to choose its own regulators. From a report: "I believe deeply that regulated entities should not choose their regulator," Sohn said in prepared testimony for a Senate Commerce Committee nomination hearing today. "Unfortunately, that is the exact intent of the past 15 months of false and misleading attacks on my record and my character. My industry opponents have hidden behind dark money groups and surrogates because they fear a pragmatic, pro-competition, pro-consumer policymaker who will support policies that will bring more, faster, and lower-priced broadband and new voices to your constituents."

Biden first nominated Sohn, a longtime consumer advocate and former FCC official, on October 26, 2021. The full Senate never voted on whether to confirm Sohn as an FCC commissioner, and Biden renominated her last month. With the FCC deadlocked at two Democrats and two Republicans, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel hasn't been able to pursue any major regulation of an industry that was deregulated during the Trump era. "The FCC has been without a majority for the entirety of the Biden administration -- over two years -- at a time when closing the digital divide is front and center," Sohn's testimony said. "There are too many important issues in front of the commission to lack a full complement of members, including improving the broadband maps, fixing the Universal Service Fund, closing the homework gap, ensuring fair access to broadband, and protecting consumers' privacy. Americans deserve a full FCC where I could play a critical role in addressing every one of these, but time is of the essence."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: Domain registrar Namecheap had their email account breached Sunday night, causing a flood of MetaMask and DHL phishing emails that attempted to steal recipients' personal information and cryptocurrency wallets. The phishing campaigns started around 4:30 PM ET and originated from SendGrid, an email platform used historically by Namecheap to send renewal notices and marketing emails. After recipients began complaining on Twitter, Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall confirmed that the account was compromised and that they disabled email through SendGrid while they investigated the issue.

Namecheap published a statement Sunday night stating that their systems were not breached but rather it was an issue at an upstream system that they use for email. "We have evidence that the upstream system we use for sending emails (third-party) is involved in the mailing of unsolicited emails to our clients. As a result, some unauthorized emails might have been received by you," reads a statement issued by Namecheap. "We would like to assure you that Namecheap's own systems were not breached, and your products, accounts, and personal information remain secure." After the phishing incident, Namecheap says they stopped all emails, including two-factor authentication code delivery, trusted devices' verification, and password reset emails, and began investigating the attack with their upstream provider. Services were restored later that night at 7:08 PM EST.

While Namecheap did not state the name of this upstream system, the CEO of Namecheap previously tweeted that they were using SendGrid, which is also confirmed in the phishing emails' mail headers. However, Twilio SendGrid told BleepingComputer that Namecheap's incident was not the result of a hack or compromise of the email service provider's systems, adding more confusion as to what happened: "Twilio SendGrid takes fraud and abuse very seriously and invests heavily in technology and people focused on combating fraudulent and illegal communications. We are aware of the situation regarding the use of our platform to launch phishing email and our fraud, compliance and cyber security teams are engaged in the matter. This situation is not the result of a hack or compromise of Twilio's network. We encourage all end users and entities to take a multi-pronged approach to combat phishing attacks, deploying security precautions such as two factor authentication, IP access management, and using domain-based messaging. We are still investigating the situation and have no additional information to provide at this time."

An existential fight over the US government's ability to spy on its own citizens is brewing in Congress. And as this fight unfolds, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's biggest foes on Capitol Hill are no longer reformers merely interested in reining in its authority. Many lawmakers, elevated to new heights of power by the recent election, are working to dramatically curtail the methods by which the FBI investigates crime. From a report: New details about the FBI's failures to comply with restrictions on the use of foreign intelligence for domestic crimes have emerged at a perilous time for the US intelligence community. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the so-called crown jewel of US intelligence, grants the government the ability to intercept the electronic communications of overseas targets who are unprotected by the Fourth Amendment. That authority is set to expire at the end of the year. But errors in the FBI's secondary use of the data -- the investigation of crimes on US soil -- are likely to inflame an already fierce debate over whether law enforcement agents can be trusted with such an invasive tool.

Central to this tension has been a routine audit by the Department of Justice's (DOJ) national security division and the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI) -- America's "top spy" -- which unearthed new examples of the FBI failing to comply with rules limiting access to intelligence ostensibly gathered to protect US national security. Such "errors," they said, have occurred on a "large number" of occasions. A report on the audit, only recently declassified, found that in the first half of 2020, FBI personnel unlawfully searched raw FISA data on numerous occasions. In one incident, agents reportedly sought evidence of foreign influence linked to a US lawmaker. In another, an inappropriate search pertained to a local political party. In both cases, these "errors" were attributed to a "misunderstanding" of the law, the report says. At some point between December 2019 and May 2020, FBI personnel conducted searches of FISA data using "only the name of a US congressman," the report says, a query that investigators later found was "noncompliant" with legal procedures. Further reading: NSA Director Urges Congress To Renew Controversial Intelligence Authority.

Twilio on Monday announced plans to cut around 17% of its workforce, or roughly 1,500 jobs based on the 8,992 employees reported as of Sept. 30, 2022, in a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Twilio announced the layoffs in a blog post shared on the company's website. From a report: The announcement came after the cloud communications software maker already laid off around 11% of its workforce as part of a restructuring plan in September. In an email to employees, CEO Jeff Lawson said the additional cuts were driven by the need to reorganize Twilio in order to succeed. "These changes hurt," Lawson wrote. "The weeks ahead will be about processing all this change and working together to acclimate to our new structure." Lawson said Twilio is forming two business units to help the company spend less and become more efficient. One unit, Twilio Data & Applications, will be led by Elena Donio, and the second unit, Twilio Communications, will be led by Khozema Shipchandler. Lawson said that when executives were looking at these two business units, it was clear the company had gotten "too big," particularly in communications.

"Opera's adding a ChatGPT-powered tool to its sidebar that generates brief summaries of webpages and articles," reports the Verge: "The feature, called 'shorten,' is part of the company's broader plans to integrate AI tools into its browser, similar to what Microsoft's doing with Edge."

The "shorten" feature isn't available to everyone just yet, though. Jan Standel, the vice president of marketing and communications at Opera, tells The Verge that it's going to "launch in browsers very soon." Opera's also working on other AI-powered features that "augment" the browsing experience and plans on adding "popular AI-generated content services to the sidebar," although it's not yet clear what this could entail.
In the blog post Opera's EVP for PC Browsers and Gaming shared their belief that "with AI solutions springing up both for text, image, and audio generation and in countless other forms, we are at the brink of a new era of creativity on the Web."

The post says the forthcoming AI integration follows their "track record of giving users direct access to the internet's most in-demand platforms, such as TikTok, Telegram, and WhatsApp." And Opera's co-CEO added that "Whether inventing browser tabs or providing our users with built-in access to generative AI tools, we always push the limits of what's possible on the web."

According to CNBC, the United States is placing sanctions on six Chinese tech companies for supporting spy balloon programs that have spanned more than 40 countries. The development comes less than a week after the U.S. military used fighter jets to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon along the South Carolina coast. From the report: "The Commerce Department will not hesitate to use the Entity List and our other regulatory and enforcement tools to protect U.S. national security and sovereignty," said Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves. "The Entity List is a powerful tool for identifying and cutting off actors that seek to use their access to global markets to do harm and threaten American national security. We will not hesitate to use the Entity List and our other regulatory and enforcement tools to protect U.S. national security." Earlier today, a U.S. military F-22 shot down a second "high altitude object" in American airspace over Alaska.

"We're calling this an object because that's the best description we have right now," said White House spokesman John Kirby. He also said U.S. officials did not yet know which nation or group was responsible for it.

The Pentagon downed an unidentified object over Alaska on Thursday night at the order of President Biden, according to a U.S. official. From a report: The U.S. official said it was not confirmed if the object was a balloon, but it was traveling at an altitude that made it a potential threat to civilian aircraft. Mr. Biden ordered the unidentified object downed "out of an abundance of caution," the official said. The action comes less than a week after a U.S. fighter jet shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had traversed the United States, according to three American officials. The latest breach, officials said, took place Thursday night, over Alaska. One official described it as a "fast-moving" situation that was still developing. It is not clear if the object was from an adversarial power, or a commercial or research operation that has gone astray, the official said.

China has cut its participation in an internet cable project to link Asia with Europe, as tensions grow between Washington and Beijing over control of the physical infrastructure that transmits the world's online traffic. From a report: Two of China's biggest telecoms groups, China Telecom and China Mobile, withdrew their combined investment of roughly 20 per cent from the subsea cable project last year after a US company was selected to build the line over Hengtong Marine, the country's biggest provider in the sector, according to three people briefed on the decision.

Their exit from the Sea-Me-We 6 pipeline -- which is estimated to cost around $500mn to lay 19,200km of cables connecting south-east Asia to western Europe -- highlights the growing battle between China and the US over who builds and owns the infrastructure underpinning the global internet. The departure of China Mobile and China Telecom is an indication of intensifying tensions between Washington and Beijing, according to industry figures with knowledge of the project. Another member of the consortium described their involvement as "important but not critical."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Amazon's Kuiper division can start launching satellites to offer broadband service in the US, the Federal Communications Commission said yesterday. The FCC's International Bureau approved Kuiper's orbital debris mitigation plan. This approval was needed to satisfy a condition imposed in 2020 when the Amazon subsidiary received tentative approval for a network of 3,236 satellites in low-Earth orbit. "Our action will allow Kuiper to begin deployment of its constellation in order to bring high-speed broadband connectivity to customers around the world," yesterday's FCC order said.

Amazon's biggest competitor for low-latency satellite broadband will be SpaceX's Starlink service, but Amazon's launch schedule puts it a few years behind SpaceX. The companies have fought each other in FCC proceedings, with Amazon objecting to SpaceX's satellite plans and SpaceX filing objections to Amazon's. In approving Amazon's plan yesterday, the FCC dismissed objections from other satellite providers such as SpaceX and Viasat. As the FCC order notes, SpaceX argued that the commission "should limit Kuiper to deploy only 578 satellites in its 630 kilometer orbital shell, and defer action regarding the remainder of the constellation," in order to "address Kuiper's ability to coexist with other systems in and around its 590 kilometer and 610 kilometer shells, and allow for 'continued monitoring' of deployment." A Space filing last month said, "Granting an initial 578 satellites of Amazon's 3,236-satellite system would offer Amazon a path to begin deploying for 'many months,' while providing the Commission with time and additional data to assess the serious issues raised in this proceeding." [...]

According to the FCC, SpaceX also argued "that Kuiper's satellite disposal strategy will place the Kuiper satellites in an elliptical orbit that, because of the variable effects of atmospheric drag on orbit evolution, will result in large uncertainties in the predicted trajectories of the Kuiper satellites, making it difficult for other operators to assess and mitigate risk." SpaceX contended that "the large covariances involved in the elliptical orbits may therefore pose a risk to SpaceX's satellites operating at the same altitudes during their orbit raising phase of operations." However, Kuiper responded that it "will perform orbit determination using Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements on all Kuiper satellites during the deorbiting process and share high-accuracy location information with operators on a real-time basis." The FCC accepted that plan and imposed it as a condition on the license. SpaceX and Viasat both "raised concerns that Kuiper's satellite designs are not sufficiently finalized to enable review," but Amazon said the design is complete and that it doesn't expect material changes, the FCC order said. Kuiper would have to apply for a license modification if it does make significant changes.

The alleged Chinese spy balloon that flew over the US was capable of collecting communications signals and was part of a broader People's Liberation Army intelligence-gathering effort that spanned more than 40 countries, a State Department official said Thursday. From a report: High-resolution imagery provided by U-2 spy planes that flew past the balloon revealed an array of surveillance equipment that was inconsistent with Beijing's claim that it was a weather device blown off course, the official said in a statement provided on condition of anonymity. The statement, released before State and Defense Department officials appeared before Congress in open hearings and closed briefings on Thursday, marks the fullest accounting yet for the Biden administration's insistence over the course of a week-long drama that the balloon was meant to spy on the US. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in an interview with CBS News that the Pentagon acted to limit what the balloon could learn about US nuclear capabilities.

Matthew Hillier can't get Comcast service at his home in Arvada, Colorado. But that didn't stop Comcast from claiming it serves his house when it submitted data for the Federal Communications Commission's new broadband map. From a report: Comcast eventually admitted to the FCC that it doesn't serve the address -- but only after Ars got involved. Comcast will have to correct its submission for Hillier's house, and a bigger correction might be needed because it appears Comcast doesn't serve dozens of other nearby homes that it claimed as part of its coverage area.

When Hillier looked up his address on the FCC map, it showed Comcast claims to offer 1.2Gbps download and 35Mbps upload speeds at the house. In reality, he makes do with CenturyLink Internet that tops out at 60Mbps downloads and 5Mbps uploads. Hillier -- an engineer with 30 years experience who previously worked for several telecom firms, including Comcast and Charter -- submitted a challenge to the FCC in mid-November, telling the commission that Comcast doesn't serve his address. Correcting false data is important because the map will be used to determine which parts of the US are eligible for $42.45 billion in federal grants to expand broadband availability. Program rules require ISPs to respond to challenges within 60 days, and Comcast's first response to Hillier's insisted that it actually does serve the house, which is on a street called Quartz Loop. "The provider subject to your challenge has disputed your challenge," the FCC told Hillier in an automated email on January 21. Comcast admitted to the FCC that it doesn't offer service at Hillier's home in Arvada on February 3, one day after Ars contacted Comcast's public relations department.

Slashdot reader lexios shares this report from the French international news agency Agence France-Press: European police arrested 42 suspects and seized guns, drugs and millions in cash, after cracking another encrypted online messaging service used by criminals, Dutch law enforcement said Friday. Police launched raids on 79 premises in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands following an investigation that started back in September 2020 and led to the shutting down of the covert Exclu Messenger service.

After police and prosecutors got into the Exclu secret communications system, they were able to read the messages passed between criminals for five months before the raids, said Dutch police. Those arrested include users of the app, as well as its owners and controllers. Police in France, Italy and Sweden, as well as Europol and Eurojust, its justice agency twin, also took part in the investigation. The police raids uncovered at least two drugs labs, one cocaine-processing facility, several kilograms of drugs, four million euros in cash, luxury goods and guns, Dutch police said.
The "secure" messaging app was used by around 3 000 people who paid 800 euros (roughly $866 USD) for a six-month subscription.

Ryan Grewell, who runs a small wireless Internet service provider in Ohio, last month received an email that confirmed some of his worst suspicions about cable companies. From a report: Grewell, founder and general manager of Smart Way Communications, had heard from some of his customers that the Federal Communications Commission's new broadband map falsely claimed fiber Internet service was available at their homes from another company called Jefferson County Cable. Those customer reports spurred Grewell to submit a number of challenges to the FCC in an attempt to correct errors in Smart Way's service area.

One of Grewell's challenges elicited a response from Jefferson County Cable executive Bob Loveridge, who apparently thought Grewell was a resident at the challenged address rather than a competitor. "You challenged that we do not have service at your residence and indeed we don't today," Loveridge wrote in a January 9 email that Grewell shared with Ars. "With our huge investment in upgrading our service to provide xgpon we reported to the BDC [Broadband Data Collection] that we have service at your residence so that they would not allocate addition [sic] broadband expansion money over [the] top of our private investment in our plant."

The email is reminiscent of our November 2022 article about a cable company accidentally telling a rival about its plan to block government grants to competitors. Speaking to Ars in a phone interview, Grewell said, "This cable company happened to just say the quiet part out loud." He called it "a blatant attempt at blocking anyone else from getting funding in an area they intend to serve." It's not clear when Jefferson County Cable plans to serve the area. Program rules do not allow ISPs to claim future coverage in their map submissions. Jefferson County Cable ultimately admitted to the FCC that it filed incorrect data and was required to submit a correction. The challenge that the ISP conceded was for an address on State Route 43 in Bergholz, Ohio. The town is not one of the coverage areas listed on Jefferson County Cable's website.

The European Union is weighing a proposal to make technology companies that use the most bandwidth, like Netflix and Alphabet, to help pay for the next generation of internet infrastructure, according to a draft document seen by Bloomberg. From the report: The suggestions are part of a "fair-share" vision from the EU's executive arm that could require large tech businesses, which provide streaming videos and other data-heavy services, to help pay for the traffic they generate.

The draft document, which is part of a consultation with the industry, suggested firms might contribute to a fund to offset the cost of building 5G mobile networks and fiber infrastructure, as well as the creation of a mandatory system of direct payments from tech giants to telecom operators. The commission also asked companies whether there should be a threshold that would qualify a company to be a "large traffic generator," the document showed. That could be similar to the European governing body's rules designating some tech companies "gatekeepers" and "very large online platforms" in its recent competition and online content rules.