Sunday, June 19, 2022

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Apple Store employees in Maryland vote to unionize

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 05:40 PM PDT

Apple Store employees at the company's Towson Town Center location in Maryland have voted to unionize. According to the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (AppleCore), the group that led the unionization effort, workers voted "overwhelming" in favor of joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). With the historic vote, Towson Town Center should become the first unionized Apple Store in the US. 

"I applaud the courage displayed by CORE members at the Apple store in Towson for achieving this historic victory," said IAM International President Robert Martinez Jr. in a statement following the vote."They made a huge sacrifice for thousands of Apple employees across the nation who had all eyes on this election. I ask Apple CEO Tim Cook to respect the election results and fast-track a first contract for the dedicated IAM CORE Apple employees in Towson. This victory shows the growing demand for unions at Apple stores and different industries across our nation."

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Advocacy group asks Meta to add Facebook relationship options for non-monogamists

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 12:59 PM PDT

An advocacy group is calling on Meta to allow Facebook users to list more than one romantic partner in their profiles. In a letter the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy (OPEN) sent to the social media giant on Thursday, it said the current design of Facebook's relationship status feature is "exclusionary" towards people who practice ethical non-monogamy. The group has asked that Meta allow users to tag all their romantic partners.

"At best, this restriction perpetuates the erasure and marginalization of non-monogamous relationships; at worst, it harms non-monogamous users by perpetuating social stigmas around the validity and authenticity of their relationships," OPEN said.

A Meta spokesperson told The New York Times the company is reviewing the letter and noted that Facebook already allows users to mention on their profile that they're in an "open relationship" with one or more people. The timing of the request may seem curious given Facebook's declining daily userbase, but it's in line with the growing number of people who find themselves in non-monogamous relationships. According to data cited by OPEN, about four to five percent of American adults practice ethical non-monogamy.

Someone made a tombstone to mark Internet Explorer’s end-of-support date

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 10:54 AM PDT

When Microsoft effectively discontinued support for Internet Explorer earlier this week, one person decided to mark the occasion with a bit of humor. Per Reuters, software Jung Ki-young spent 430,000 won (about $330) to design and order a headstone for the web browser ahead of its official end-of-support date. The memorial, located on the roof of his brother's cafe in the South Korean city of Gyeongju, features IE's iconic logo followed by an English epitaph that reads, "He was a good tool to download other browsers."

Jung told Reuters he commissioned the memorial to commemorate a program that had defined his career. Even as apps like Chrome and Firefox went on to replace Internet Explorer in both prominence and popularity, many of Jung's customers kept asking him to ensure their websites looked good in Microsoft's aging web browser. "It was a pain in the ass, but I would call it a love-hate relationship because Explorer itself once dominated an era," he said.

As funny as the tombstone is, it may be premature. Microsoft still plans to support Internet Explorer in some contexts. For instance, Edge's IE Mode will continue to work through 2029 or later. Moreover, parts of the world, including countries like Japan, continue to use the web browser for business and government administration.

NASA begins fourth Artemis 1 rocket 'wet dress rehearsal' fueling test today

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 09:14 AM PDT

With repairs complete and the rocket in place at its designated launch pad, NASA is ready to once again attempt a critical fueling test of its next-generation Space Launch System. Per Space.com, the Artemis 1 "wet dress rehearsal" will begin at 5PM ET today with a call to stations for ground personnel at Kennedy Space Center.

Over the next 48 hours, technicians will attempt loading the rocket's first and second stages with cryogenic fuel. Provided there aren't major setbacks, they will then try to load it with propellant starting Monday morning. If the test is successful, the Artemis 1 mission could get underway as early as July 26th.

For the oft-delayed SLS, this is its second trip to historic Launch Pad 39B. Following an initial attempt at the wet dress rehearsal on April 1st, NASA tried to complete a modified version of the fueling test on April 14th, but that was cut short after the agency discovered a hydrogen leak in the rocket's mobile launch tower. NASA eventually decided to move the SLS back to the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs and to give a critical nitrogen supplier time to complete capacity upgrades.

Once the wet dress rehearsal is complete, NASA can finally move forward with Artemis 1. The mission will send an unmanned Orion capsule on a flight around the Moon. The next two Artemis missions would feature human astronauts, with an eye toward a lunar landing sometime in 2025 or 2026.

Former Amazon engineer convicted in 2019 Capital One data breach

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 07:23 AM PDT

A Seattle jury has found Paige Thompson, a former Amazon software engineer accused of stealing data from Capital One in 2019, guilty of wire fraud and five counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer. The Capital One hack was one of the biggest security breaches in the US and compromised the data of 100 million people in the country, along with 6 million people in Canada. Thompson was arrested in July that year after a GitHub user saw her post on the website sharing information about stealing data from servers storing Capital One information. 

According to the Department of Justice, Thompson used a tool she built herself to scan Amazon Web Services for misconfigured accounts. She then allegedly used those accounts to infiltrate Capital One's servers and download over 100 million people's data. The jury has decided that Thompson violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by doing so, but her lawyers argued that she used the same tools and method also used by ethical hackers.

The Justice Department recently amended the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to protect ethical or white hat hackers. As long as researchers are investigating or fixing vulnerabilities in "good faith" and aren't using the security holes they discover for extortion or other malicious purposes, they can no longer be charged under the law.

US authorities, however, disagreed with the assertion that she was only trying to expose Capital One's vulnerabilities. The Justice Department said she planted cryptocurrency mining software onto the bank's servers and sent the earnings straight to her digital wallet. She also allegedly bragged about the hack on online forums. 

"Far from being an ethical hacker trying to help companies with their computer security, she exploited mistakes to steal valuable data and sought to enrich herself," US Attorney Nick Brown said. Thompson could be sentenced with up to 20 years of prison time for wire fraud and up to five years for each charge of illegally accessing a protected computer. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for September 15th.

Lawmakers ask Google to stop steering people seeking abortion to anti-abortion sites

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 03:43 AM PDT

A group of Democratic lawmakers led by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Rep. Elissa Slotkin is urging Google to "crack down on manipulative search results" that lead people seeking abortions to anti-abortion clinics. In a letter addressed to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, the lawmakers reference a study conducted by US nonprofit group Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The organization found that 1 in 10 Google search results for queries such as "abortion clinics near me" and "abortion pill" — specifically in states with trigger laws that would ban the procedure the moment Roe v. Wade is overturned — points to crisis pregnancy centers that oppose abortion instead.

"Directing women towards fake clinics that traffic in misinformation and don't provide comprehensive health services is dangerous to women's health and undermines the integrity of Google's search results," the lawmakers wrote. CCDH also found that 37 percent of results on Google Maps for the same search terms lead people to anti-abortion clinics. The lawmakers argue in the letter that Google should not be displaying those results for users searching for abortion and that if the company's search results must continue showing them, they should at least be properly labeled.

In addition, CCDH found that 28 percent of ads displayed at the top of Google search results are for crisis pregnancy centers. Google added a disclaimer for those ads, "albeit one that appears in small font and is easily missed," the lawmakers note, after getting flak for them a few years ago. "The prevalence of these misleading ads marks what appears to be a concerning reversal from Google's pledge in 2014 to take down ads from crisis pregnancy centers that engage in overt deception of women seeking out abortion information online," the letter reads.

Warner, Slotkin and the letter's other signees are asking Google what it plans to do to limit the appearance of anti-abortion clinics when users are explicitly searching for abortion services. And, if Google chooses not to take action to prevent them from appearing in results, the group is asking whether Google would add user-friendly disclaimers clarifying whether the clinic is or isn't providing abortion services. You can read the whole letter below:

A Supreme Court draft obtained by Politico in May showed that SCOTUS justices have voted to reverse Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that protected the federal rights to abortion across the country. Senator Ron Wyden and 41 other Democratic lawmakers also previously asked Google to stop collecting and keeping users' location data. They said the information could be used against people who've had or are seeking abortions in states with trigger laws. 
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