Apple said on Monday it is expanding its "Independent Repair Provider" to over 200 countries, nearly every country where the iPhone-maker's products are sold. From a press release: Launched originally in 2019 and expanded to Europe and Canada last year, the program enables repair providers of all sizes access to genuine Apple parts, tools, repair manuals, and diagnostics to offer safe and reliable repairs for Apple products. There are now more than 1,500 Independent Repair Provider locations serving customers across the US, Canada, and Europe. "Being a part of the Independent Repair Provider program has been a huge benefit to my business, employees, and customers," said Scott Baker, owner of Mister Mac in Wimberley, Texas. "Since joining, we've received great support from Apple, and we're able to deliver that same level of service to our customers. It has even brought genuine excitement to our town." All participating repair providers in the program have access to free training from Apple and the same genuine parts, tools, repair manuals, and diagnostics as Apple Authorized Service Providers (AASPs) and Apple Store locations. Further reading: Apple's Independent Repair Program is Invasive To Shops and Their Customers, Contract Shows (Published in February 2020).

Suspected Russian hackers gained access to email accounts belonging to the Trump administration's head of the Department of Homeland Security and members of the department's cybersecurity staff whose jobs included hunting threats from foreign countries, The Associated Press reported Monday, citing sources. From the report: The intelligence value of the hacking of then-acting Secretary Chad Wolf and his staff is not publicly known, but the symbolism is stark. Their accounts were accessed as part of what's known as the SolarWinds intrusion, and it throws into question how the U.S. government can protect individuals, companies and institutions across the country if it can't protect itself. The short answer for many security experts and federal officials is that it can't -- at least not without some significant changes. "The SolarWinds hack was a victory for our foreign adversaries, and a failure for DHS," said Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, top Republican on the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "We are talking about DHS's crown jewels."

Sunday IT Wire counted up the number of signatories on two open letters, one opposing Richard Stallman's return to the FSF and one supporting it.

- The pro-Stallman letter had 3,632 individual signers
- The anti-Stallman letter had 2,812 individual signers (plus 48 companies and organizations).

But the question of Stallman's leadership has now also arisen in the GCC community:

A long-time developer of GCC, the compiler created by the GNU Project and used in Linux distributions, has issued a call for the removal of Free Software Founder Richard Stallman from the GCC steering committee. Nathan Sidwell [also a software engineer at Facebook] said in a post directed to the committee that if it was unwilling to remove Stallman, then the panel should explain why it was not able to do so.

Stallman is also the founder of the GNU Project and the original author of GCC.

"RMS [Stallman] is no longer a developer of GCC, the most recent commit I can find regards SCO in 2003," Sidwell wrote in a long email. "Prior to that there were commits in 1997, but significantly less than 1994 and earlier. GCC's implementation language is now C++, which I believe RMS neither uses nor likes.

"When was RMS' most recent positive input to the GCC project? Even if it was recent and significant, that doesn't mean his toxic behaviour should be accepted."
Meanwhile, the following groups have also issued statements opposing Stallman's return to the FSF:

- Mozilla: We can't demand better of the internet if we don't demand better of our leaders, colleagues and ourselves. We're with the Open Source Diversity Community, Outreachy & the Software Conservancy project in supporting this petition.
- The Tor Project: The Tor Project is joining calls for Richard M. Stallman to be removed from board, staff, volunteer, and other leadership positions in the FOSS community, including the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project.
Rust creator Graydon Hoare: He's been saying sexist shit & driving women away for decades. He can't change, the FSF board knows it, is sending a "sexism doesn't matter" message. This is bad leadership and I'm sad about all of it, agree with calls to resign.

If someone is a public leader their public behaviour matters. I don't criticize private individuals here and I don't think twitter-justice is especially nuanced. But this is so far over the line, such a stupid and tone-deaf choice, and it is about community leadership.
The EFF: We at EFF are profoundly disappointed to hear of the re-election of Richard Stallman to a leadership position at the Free Software Foundation, after a series of serious accusations of misconduct led to his resignation as president and board member of the FSF in 2019. We are also disappointed that this was done despite no discernible steps taken by him to be accountable for, much less make amends for, his past actions or those who have been harmed by them. Finally, we are also disturbed by the secretive process of his re-election, and how it was belatedly conveyed to FSF's staff and supporters.

Stallman's re-election sends a wrong and hurtful message to free software movement, as well as those who have left that movement because of Stallman's previous behavior.

Free software is a vital component of an open and just technological society: its key institutions and individuals cannot place misguided feelings of loyalty above their commitment to that cause. The movement for digital freedom is larger than any one individual contributor, regardless of their role. Indeed, we hope that this moment can be an opportunity to bring in new leaders and new ideas to the free software movement.

We urge the voting members of the FSF1 to call a special meeting to reconsider this decision, and we also call on Stallman to step down: for the benefit of the organization, the values it represents, and the diversity and long-term viability of the free software movement as a whole.
Finally, the Free Software Foundation itself has now pinned the following tweet at the top of its Twitter feed: No LibrePlanet organizers (staff or volunteer), speakers, award winners, exhibitors, or sponsors were made aware of Richard Stallman's announcement until it was public.

Parler confirmed Saturday that it had referred dozens of violent posts to America's Federal Bureau of Investigation, reports Newsweek. But even after a blog post explaining its reasons, "some of the platform's users were less than impressed." Parler, which faced significant backlash in the wake of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by former President Donald Trump's supporters, referred violent content to the FBI at least 50 times prior to the pro-Trump riot, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The social media site shared a link to the article, drawing backlash from some members of the online platform. Parler has built its platform by positioning itself as being opposed to censorship and staunchly in favor of free speech.

"In reaction to yesterday's news stories, some users have raised questions about the practice of referring violent or inciting content to law enforcement. The First Amendment does not protect violence inciting speech, nor the planning of violent acts. Such content violates Parler's TOS. Any violent content shared with law enforcement was posted publicly and brought to our attention primarily via user reporting. And, as it is posted publicly, it can properly be referred to law enforcement by anyone. Parler remains steadfast in protecting your right to free speech," Parler posted on Saturday in response to criticism.

But some users of the site were still unhappy with Parler's decision.

"I don't like snitches," user MelodySuarez wrote in response to the explanation.
Users "vented their fury at the site's apparent willingness to report its users despite its pitch of protecting free speech," Newsweek reported in an earlier article.

"Parler is a fraud," one user had complained.

"The idea of artificially cooling the planet to blunt climate change — in effect, blocking sunlight before it can warm the atmosphere — got a boost on Thursday when an influential scientific body urged the U.S. government to spend at least $100 million to research the technology," reports the New York Times: That technology, often called solar geoengineering, entails reflecting more of the sun's energy back into space through techniques that include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere. In a new report, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said that governments urgently need to know whether solar geoengineering could work and what the side effects might be.

"Solar geoengineering is not a substitute for decarbonizing," said Chris Field, director of the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University and head of the committee that produced the report, referring to the need to emit less carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Still, he said, technology to reflect sunlight "deserves substantial funding, and it should be researched as rapidly and effectively as possible." The report acknowledged the risks that have made geoengineering one of the most contentious issues in climate policy. Those risks include upsetting regional weather patterns in potentially devastating ways, for example by changing the behavior of the monsoon in South Asia; relaxing public pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and even creating an "unacceptable risk of catastrophically rapid warming" if governments started reflecting sunlight for a period of time, and then later stopped.

But the authors argue that greenhouse gas emissions are not falling quickly enough to avoid dangerous levels of global warming, which means the world must begin to examine other options. Evidence for or against solar geoengineering, they found, "could have profound value" in guiding decisions about whether to deploy it.

While President Trump's former CDC director says he still thinks SARS-Cov-2 somehow originated from a lab in China, "a team of experts from the World Health Organization, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and a number of virology experts have said the evidence to support such a claim just isn't there," reports CBS News: Redfield, a virologist who headed the CDC under President Trump, stressed several times that this is just his opinion, not a proven fact. "I'm allowed to have opinions now," he said... Dr. Anthony Fauci addressed Redfield's comments at Friday's COVID-19 response briefing and suggested that most public health officials disagree.... Kristian G. Andersen, director of the infectious disease genomics, translational research institute at Scripps Research, told CBS News that "none of (Redfield's) comments" on the lab theory are "backed by available evidence."

"It is clear that not only was he the most disastrous CDC director in U.S. history where he utterly failed in his sworn mission to keep the country safe, but via his comments, he also shows a complete lack of basic evolutionary virology," Andersen said.

Andersen was the lead author of a study published in Nature Medicine last year which found that the virus was a product of natural evolution. Furthermore, through analysis of public genome sequence data, the scientists "found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered," according to a press release from Scripps. "By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes," Andersen said at the time. W. Ian Lipkin, a study co-author with Andersen and the director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, said that while there's still a lot we don't know about the virus, including exactly how long it's been circulating, there is "no evidence" to suggest that it was created in a lab...

Andersen noted that "We know that the first epidemiologically linked cluster of cases came from the Huanan market and we know the virus was found in environmental samples — including animal cages — at the market," he said. "Any 'lab leak' theory would have to account for that scenario — which it simply can't, without invoking a major conspiracy and cover up by Chinese scientists and authorities."

His scathing conclusion: "Redfield has no idea what he's talking about — plain and simple. It's no surprise given his disastrous tenure as CDC director."

CNBC wrote recently, "Artificial intelligence will create so much wealth that every adult in the United States could be paid $13,500 per year from its windfall as soon as 10 years from now. So says Sam Altman, co-founder and president of San Francisco-headquartered, artificial intelligence-focused nonprofit OpenAI..." [I]f the government collects and redistributes the wealth that AI will generate, AI's exponential productivity gains could "make the society of the future much less divisive and enable everyone to participate in its gains," Altman says.... As the pace of development accelerates, AI "will create phenomenal wealth" but at the same time the price of labor "will fall towards zero," Altman said. "It sounds utopian, but it's something technology can deliver (and in some cases already has). Imagine a world where, for decades, everything — housing, education, food, clothing, etc. — became half as expensive every two years."

In this future, where wealth will come from companies and land, governments should tax capital, not labor, and those taxes should be distributed to citizens, Altman said. In his post, Altman proposed an American Equity Fund that taxes sufficiently large companies 2.5% of their market value in the form of company shares, and 2.5% of the value of all land in the form of dollars... All citizens over 18 would receive payment in both dollars and company shares.... "As people's individual assets rise in tandem with the country's, they have a literal stake in seeing their country do well," Altman said. With this system in mind, in 10 years, the 250 million adults living in America would get $13,500 per year, Altman said... "That dividend could be much higher if AI accelerates growth, but even if it's not, $13,500 will have much greater purchasing power than it does now because technology will have greatly reduced the cost of goods and services," Altman wrote. "And that effective purchasing power will go up dramatically every year."

Elon Musk has hinted at a similar future. "There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation," Musk told CNBC in 2016. "Yeah, I am not sure what else one would do. I think that is what would happen." Musk is also a co-founder of OpenAI but left the board in 2018 citing the fact that Tesla was becoming an AI company as it developed self-driving capabilities. Such a system is "both pro-business and pro-people," Altman said, and would therefore bring together "a remarkably broad constituency."

"The changes coming are unstoppable," Altman said. "If we embrace them and plan for them, we can use them to create a much fairer, happier, and more prosperous society. The future can be almost unimaginably great."

Solar is becoming the cheapest option for new electricity in the world, but there's still room to improve. According to a new cost-reduction target announced today, the U.S. Department of Energy aims to cut utility-scale solar power plant costs by 60% by 2030. CleanTechnica reports: So, how does the DOE intend to help cut solar power costs so much by 2030? First of all, the U.S. DOE's Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) sees two materials used in solar cells as critical to this brighter solar future perovskites and cadmium telluride (CdTe). The department is [spending] $63 million to try to help with these solar cell innovation goals. In the DOE's own words:

- $40 million for perovskite R&D: Perovskites are a family of emerging solar materials that have potential to make highly efficient thin-film solar cells with very low production costs. DOE is awarding $40 million to 22 projects that will advance perovskite PV device and manufacturing research and developmentâ"as well as performance through the formation of a new $14 million testing center to provide neutral, independent validation of the performance of new perovskite devices.
- $3 million Perovskite Startup Prize: This new prize competition will speed entrepreneurs' path to commercializing perovskite technologies by providing seed capital for their newly formed companies.
- $20 million for CdTe thin films: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory will set up a consortium to advance cheaper CdTe thin-film solar technologies, which were developed in the United States and make up 20% of the modules installed in this country. This consortium will advance low-cost manufacturing techniques and domestic research capabilities, increasing opportunities for U.S. workers and entrepreneurs to capture a larger portion of the $60 billion global solar manufacturing sector.

"Today's announcement also supports several concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) projects," the department notes. Here are details from the DOE:

- $33 million for CSP advances: The new funding opportunity also includes funding for improvements to the reliability and performance of CSP plants, which can dispatch solar energy whenever it is needed; identifies new solar applications for industrial processes, which contribute 20% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions; and advances long-duration thermal-energy storage devices. Long-duration energy storage is critical to decarbonizing the electricity sector and couples well with CSP plants, but the cost must fall by a factor of two to unlock deployment.
- $25 million to demonstrate a next-generation CSP power plant: Sandia National Laboratories will receive funding to build a facility where researchers, developers, and manufacturers can test next-generation CSP components and systems and advance toward DOE's 2030 cost target of 5 cents/kWh for CSP plants.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: More than five hours of questioning later, we have learned very little about the state of disinformation from today's marathon hearing with Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai. Democrats pushed the CEOs to answer for their platforms' failing on vaccine misinformation and extremism. Republicans wanted to talk about child safety. Everyone wanted simple "yes" or "no" answers, though few were given. What is clear is that both sides are more than ready to impose new rules on Facebook, Twitter and Google.

The hearing was supposed to be about the platforms' handling of misinformation and extremism. The issue has taken on a new significance during the coronavirus pandemic and in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol. [...] As with other recent hearings, the format made it nearly impossible to extract meaningful answers. Many lawmakers used their allotted five minutes to demand "yes or no" answers, which the executives were reluctant to give. In one particularly memorable exchange, Rep. Anna Eshoo of California was questioning Zuckerberg over Facebook's algorithms when she interrupted him to point out that "we don't do filibuster in the House." "I think it's irritating all of us and that is, no one seems to know the word yes or the word no, which one is it," she said. "Congresswoman, these are nuanced issues, " Zuckerberg said before he was cut off. "Okay, that's a no," she said.

As the hearing dragged on, lawmakers began to repeat themselves. Inevitably, when a new issue or angle was raised -- like when Rep. David McKinley showed Zuckerberg copies of Instagram posts selling prescription pills -- the executives had little time to respond in a meaningful way. The result is that the CEOs' opening statements provided more detail on the issues at hand than anything they were able to say in the five hours that came after them. This, of course, is nothing new. Over the last couple of years, Congress has convened a number of hearings featuring Big Tech executives, and most of them have played out in a similar fashion. But what's increasingly clear is that the both sides of the aisle are eager to impose new regulations on tech platforms.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: All of the major carriers made a significant change to how SMS messages are routed to prevent hackers being able to easily reroute a target's texts, according to an announcement from Aerialink, a communications company that helps route text messages. The move comes after a Motherboard investigation in which a hacker, with minimal effort, paid $16 to reroute our text messages and then used that ability to break into a number of online accounts, including Postmates, WhatsApp, and Bumble, exposing a gaping hole in the country's telecommunications infrastructure.

"The Number Registry has announced that wireless carriers will no longer be supporting SMS or MMS text enabling on their respective wireless numbers," the March 25 announcement from Aerialink, reads. The announcement adds that the change is "industry-wide" and "affects all SMS providers in the mobile ecosystem." "Be aware that Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T have reclaimed overwritten text-enabled wireless numbers industry-wide. As a result, any Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T wireless numbers which had been text-enabled as BYON no longer route messaging traffic through the Aerialink Gateway," the announcement adds, referring to Bring Your Own Number.

The ACLU will be seeking information about how the government is using artificial intelligence in national security, Axios reported Friday. From a report: The development of AI has major implications for security, surveillance, and justice. The ACLU's request may help shed some light on the government's often opaque applications of AI. Later today the ACLU will be filing a broad Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the CIA, the NSA, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies concerning the government's use of AI, especially in the area of national security. "The problem with these AI systems is that they're black boxes," says Patrick Toomey, senior staff attorney at the ACLU National Security Project. "The public needs to know exactly what kinds of fundamental decisions about our lives the government is handing over to AI." The ACLU is specifically concerned about "vetting and screening processes in agencies like Homeland Security, and tools that can analyze voice, data and video," says Toomey. Another area of concern is the possibility that AI systems could be "biased against people of color, women and marginalized communities," he adds. "AI systems could be used to supercharge government activities to unfairly scrutinize communities through intrusive surveillance, questioning and even detention and watchlisting."

Security researchers say a powerful new Android malware masquerading as a critical system update can take complete control of a victim's device and steal their data. From a report: The malware was found bundled in an app called "System Update" that had to be installed outside of Google Play, the app store for Android devices. Once installed by the user, the app hides and stealthily exfiltrates data from the victim's device to the operator's servers. Researchers at mobile security firm Zimperium, which discovered the malicious app, said once the victim installs the malicious app, the malware communicates with the operator's Firebase server, used to remotely control the device. The spyware can steal messages, contacts, device details, browser bookmarks and search history, record calls and ambient sound from the microphone, and take photos using the phone's cameras. The malware also tracks the victim's location, searches for document files and grabs copied data from the device's clipboard. The malware hides from the victim and tries to evade capture by reducing how much network data it consumes by uploading thumbnails to the attacker's servers rather than the full image. The malware also captures the most up-to-date data, including location and photos.

Amazon has scrapped a plan to use new high-tech surveillance cameras to verify whether its delivery drivers are wearing face masks on the job. From a report: The internet retail giant is in the process of installing the cameras -- which will use artificial intelligence to identify driver drowsiness, distracted driving and other risky behavior -- in its vast fleet of Amazon-branded delivery vans in the U.S., a move Amazon says is aimed at improving safety. In a recent training video for drivers, Amazon listed one previously unreported form of driver behavior it planned to use the cameras to check for -- "face mask compliance" -- according to an image of the video viewed by The Information. But after receiving questions from The Information about the plan, Amazon said it would no longer use the cameras to make sure drivers are wearing masks. The company said it made the change because its policy doesn't require drivers to wear face masks when they are alone in their vans.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Following the dismantling of several private trackers in 2020, a man has been sentenced for sharing thousands of TV shows and movies via now-defunct torrent site DanishBits. In a separate case, another man has been convicted of sharing 9,440 movies with a relatively small circle of family and friends using the popular Plex media server.

The chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter faced criticism from U.S. lawmakers on Thursday about their approaches to extremism and misinformation in their first appearances before Congress since pro-Trump rioters assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. From a report: "We fled as a mob desecrated the Capitol, the House floor, and our democratic process," said Democratic Representative Mike Doyle. "That attack, and the movement that motivated it, started and was nourished on your platforms," he added. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said there was content related to the riot on its platforms but, when asked if the company bore responsibility for the event, he said the company's responsibility was to "build effective systems."

"We did our part to secure the integrity of the election, and then on Jan. 6, President Trump gave a speech rejecting the results and calling on people to fight," he said. He argued that polarization in the country was due to the political and media environment. Former President Donald Trump was banned by Twitter over inciting violence around Jan. 6, while Facebook has asked its independent oversight board to rule on whether to bar him permanently. He is still suspended from YouTube. The hearing was virtual but advocacy group SumOfUs erected cut-outs of Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google parent Alphabet; and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey dressed as Jan. 6 rioters on the National Mall near the Capitol. One showed Zuckerberg as the "QAnon Shaman," a shirtless rioter wearing horns. Lawmakers speaking at the joint hearing, held by two subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, also slammed the companies over the proliferation of COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation and raised concerns about the impact of social media on children's mental health.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill on Tuesday requiring all cellphones and tablets sold in the state to automatically block pornography. In order for it to take effect though, at least five other states have to pass the measure. The Hill reports: The bill, H.B. 72, is aimed at establishing filter requirements and enforcement for tablets and smartphones activated in the state on or after Jan. 1 of the year the measure takes effect, according to its text. Manufacturers that don't abide by the law could face fines of $10 for each violation with a cap of $500. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Susan Pulishper (R), said she was "grateful" that Cox signed the bill, which she said was aimed at keeping porn away from children, the AP notes. She also noted that parents could take the filters off.

Jason Groth, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, told the news service that the measure was "another example of the Legislature dodging the constitutional impacts of the legislation they pass." He further said the bill's constitutionality will likely be argued in court.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will tell lawmakers his plan for "thoughtful reform" of a key tech liability shield rests on requiring best practices for treating illegal content online. From a report: Tech giants are starting to embrace changes to the foundational law that shields platforms from liability from content users post as lawmakers from both parties threaten it. In written testimony ahead of the House hearing Thursday with Google, Twitter and Facebook CEOs, Zuckerberg suggested making Section 230 protections for certain types of unlawful content conditional on platforms' ability to meet best practices to fight the spread of the content. "Instead of being granted immunity, platforms should be required to demonstrate that they have systems in place for identifying unlawful content and removing it," Zuckerberg wrote in the testimony. "Platforms should not be held liable if a particular piece of content evades its detection -- that would be impractical for platforms with billions of posts per day -- but they should be required to have adequate systems in place to address unlawful content." The detection system would be proportionate to platform size, with practices defined by a third party. The best practices would not include "unrelated issues" like encryption or privacy changes, he notes. He also suggested Congress bring more transparency and oversight on how companies make and enforce rules about content that is harmful but still legal.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Tesla's use of in-car cameras to record and transmit video footage of passengers to develop self-driving technology raises privacy concerns, influential U.S. magazine Consumer Reports said on Tuesday. Consumer Reports said the usage potentially undermines the safety benefits of driver monitoring, which is to alert drivers when they are not paying attention to the road.

"If Tesla has the ability to determine if the driver isn't paying attention, it needs to warn the driver in the moment, like other automakers already do," said Jake Fisher, senior director of Consumer Reports' auto test center. Automakers such as Ford Motor and General Motors, whose monitoring systems do not record or transmit data or video, use infrared technology to identify drivers' eye movements or head position to warn them if they are exhibiting signs of impairment or distraction, the magazine said. Last week, the Chinese government restricted the use of Tesla's vehicles by military staff and employees of key state-owned companies, citing concerns that the data collected by the cars could be a source of national security leaks.

Elon Musk responded by saying that Tesla would be shut down if its cars were used to spy.

Amazon delivery drivers nationwide have to sign a "biometric consent" form this week that grants the tech behemoth permission to use AI-powered cameras to access drivers' location, movement, and biometric data. From a report: If the company's delivery drivers, who number around 75,000 in the United States, refuse to sign these forms, they lose their jobs. The form requires drivers to agree to facial recognition and other biometric data collection within the trucks they drive. "Amazon may... use certain Technology that processes Biometric Information, including on-board safety camera technology which collects your photograph for the purposes of confirming your identity and connecting you to your driver account," the form reads. "Using your photograph, this Technology, may create Biometric Information, and collect, store, and use Biometric Information from such photographs." It adds that "this Technology tracks vehicle location and movement, including miles driven, speed, acceleration, braking, turns, and following distance ...as a condition of delivery packages for Amazon, you consent to the use of Technology."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: U.S. military pilots and satellites have recorded "a lot more" sightings of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, than have been made public, Donald Trump's former intelligence director John Ratcliffe said. Asked on Fox News about a forthcoming government report on "unidentified aerial phenomena," Ratcliffe said the report would document previously unknown sightings from "all over the world." "Frankly, there are a lot more sightings than have been made public," he said. "Some of those have been declassified. And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have been seen by navy or air force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery, that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain, movements that are hard to replicate, that we don't have the technology for. Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom."

The UFO report must be published by early June, pursuant to a clause in a Covid relief and spending package signed by Trump before he left office. [...] The forthcoming report is to be issued by the defense department and intelligence agencies. When an unidentified aerial phenomena is identified, Ratcliffe said, analysts try to explain it as a potential weather disturbance or other routine spectacle.

"We always look for a plausible application," he said. "Sometimes we wonder whether our adversaries have technologies that are a little but farther down the road than we thought or that we realized. But there are instances where we don't have good explanations. So in short, things that we are observing that are difficult to explain -- and so there's actually quite a few of those, and I think that that info has been gathered and will be put out in a way the American people can see." Asked by Bartiromo where the unidentified phenomena were sighted, Ratcliffe replied, "actually all over the world, there have been sightings all over the world. "Multiple sensors that are picking up these things. They're unexplained phenomenon, and there's actually quite a few more than have been made public."