Wednesday, July 12
Daily News Stuff 12 July 2023
Pup And Cattybee Edition
Pup And Cattybee Edition
Top Story
- The state of Massachusetts has been sued over colluding with Google to put spyware on residents' phones. (The Federalist)
The spyware in question was a COVID contact-tracing app, which was nominally entirely voluntary but became rather less so when citizens failed to volunteer.
According to the suit, the software was installed without the users' awareness or permission, reinstalled itself automatically if it was removed, and communicated with other nearby devices over Bluetooth.*
Massachusetts' Attorney General has filed for dismissal on the grounds that while they did indeed murder all those people, the point is moot because they are not murdering anyone at this precise moment in time.
Take a moment to admire the chutzpah while you are gathering the tar and feathers.
* Disable Bluetooth when you are not actively using it. It's not so much a security hole as a security rabbit warren.
Tech News
- The Samsung 990 Pro - the company's current top of the line consumer SSD - is currently available for $129 for 2TB. (Tom's Hardware)
A year ago that would have been a good price for a 1TB model. And if you that's enough storage for your needs, the 1TB model is now just $59, which was a price reserved for bargain-basement drives not so long ago.
- Intel is set to stop making NUCs. (AnandTech)
This is their line of mini-PCs - about four inches square and two inches high - that they've been producing for the past ten years. There are numerous competitors, from Taiwanese brands like Asus and Gigabyte, to Chinese models like Minisforum and Beelink, but with Intel there was a bit more assurance that the products would still be around next year... Until there wasn't.
- Amazon says it is not a VLOP - a very large online platform - under the EU's new rules governing VLOPs. (Ars Technica)
As far as I can tell, though, the rules are very broad - EU laws tend to be like that, unlike US laws that tend to be very specific because of constitutional restrictions - and Amazon is full of shit.
- VanMoof (who?), an e-bike maker that raised $200 million, seems to have spent it all. (Tech Crunch)
Oops.
Their bikes are kind of cool: All the electrical stuff is completely hidden, so they look like regular bicycles with chunky frames. Horribly expensive, but that doesn't matter since you can't buy one anyway.
Disclaimer: Moof or moof not, there is no van.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:20 PM
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1
An aside from the VanMoof article: "Customers, annoyed with the pauses and other delays in servicing existing bikes on the road, have turned to social media like Reddit and Twitter to air their complaints and debate whether the company is going bust or not."
You know that Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, etc., aren't going anywhere towards replacing Twitter (yet, anyway) because none of them got mention in that sentence.
You know that Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, etc., aren't going anywhere towards replacing Twitter (yet, anyway) because none of them got mention in that sentence.
Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, July 13 2023 12:29 AM (k3/O4)
2
The Massachusetts Attorney Generals request to dismiss the case as moot is actually not that unusual or bizarre in this case. When you sue a govt for running a program it shouldn't have, the usual remedy the courts have is to order the program to stop. If the program has already stopped, then there is nothing further for the courts to do in that case.
What you really need is a criminal case against the officials and google persons involved for conspiracy to violate the victim's civil rights. But of course no DA is going to file criminal charges on something like this.
What you really need is a criminal case against the officials and google persons involved for conspiracy to violate the victim's civil rights. But of course no DA is going to file criminal charges on something like this.
Posted by: David Eastman at Thursday, July 13 2023 01:30 AM (hiYWq)
3
"If the program has already stopped, then there is nothing further for the courts to do in that case."
The plaintiff's motion in opposition to the motion to dismiss disagrees: "A challenge against a governmental surveillance program is not moot simply because the program ends, if the government retains data unlawfully collected through that program. In Beautiful Struggle, 2 F.4th at 338, Baltimore ended an aerial surveillance program and said it had "no intention of accessing the data [from the program] to track and potentially identify individuals." Ibid. The en banc Fourth Circuit held the case was not moot because Baltimore still retained the data and thus "might access" and "could access ... data collected by alleged unconstitutional means" for non-tracking purposes"
The plaintiff's motion in opposition to the motion to dismiss disagrees: "A challenge against a governmental surveillance program is not moot simply because the program ends, if the government retains data unlawfully collected through that program. In Beautiful Struggle, 2 F.4th at 338, Baltimore ended an aerial surveillance program and said it had "no intention of accessing the data [from the program] to track and potentially identify individuals." Ibid. The en banc Fourth Circuit held the case was not moot because Baltimore still retained the data and thus "might access" and "could access ... data collected by alleged unconstitutional means" for non-tracking purposes"
Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, July 13 2023 02:32 AM (BMUHC)
4
BTW, Pixy, two more characters the blog software can't handle: right double quotes, \u201d and horizontal ellipsis, \u2026. Either will cause an error.
Apparently it *does* handle the left double quote, \u201c.
Apparently it *does* handle the left double quote, \u201c.
Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, July 13 2023 02:34 AM (BMUHC)
5
Thanks. That seemed weird, but it's in the spam filter rather than the core system. I'll add a fix for that today.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, July 13 2023 04:22 AM (PiXy!)
6
Okay, listen to me here: we are going to make a groundbreaking product! A portable computer! But that's not all! It will be powered with a battery, for hours and hours of user time! It will have its own screen built in, and even networking! Just hand us $200 millions and we'll get started!
Posted by: normal at Thursday, July 13 2023 11:07 AM (obo9H)
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