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Internet Archive forced to remove 500,000 books after publishers’ court win

controlled digital lending, copyright law, fair use, Features, internat archive, Open Library, Policy, Uncategorized / /
Internet Archive forced to remove 500,000 books after publishers’ court win

As a result of book publishers successfully suing the Internet Archive (IA) last year, the free online library that strives to keep growing online access to books recently shrank by about 500,000 titles.

IA reported in a blog post this month that publishers abruptly forcing these takedowns triggered a “devastating loss” for readers who depend on IA to access books that are otherwise impossible or difficult to access.

To restore access, IA is now appealing, hoping to reverse the prior court’s decision by convincing the US Court of Appeals in the Second Circuit that IA’s controlled digital lending of its physical books should be considered fair use under copyright law. An April court filing shows that IA intends to argue that the publishers have no evidence that the e-book market has been harmed by the open library’s lending, and copyright law is better served by allowing IA’s lending than by preventing it.

“We use industry-standard technology to prevent our books from being downloaded and redistributed—the same technology used by corporate publishers,” Chris Freeland, IA’s director of library services, wrote in the blog. “But the publishers suing our library say we shouldn’t be allowed to lend the books we own. They have forced us to remove more than half a million books from our library, and that’s why we are appealing.”

IA will have an opportunity to defend its practices when oral arguments start in its appeal on June 28.

“Our position is straightforward; we just want to let our library patrons borrow and read the books we own, like any other library,” Freeland wrote, while arguing that the “potential repercussions of this lawsuit extend far beyond the Internet Archive” and publishers should just “let readers read.”

“This is a fight for the preservation of all libraries and the fundamental right to access information, a cornerstone of any democratic society,” Freeland wrote. “We believe in the right of authors to benefit from their work; and we believe that libraries must be permitted to fulfill their mission of providing access to knowledge, regardless of whether it takes physical or digital form. Doing so upholds the principle that knowledge should be equally and equitably accessible to everyone, regardless of where they live or where they learn.”

Internet Archive fans beg publishers to end takedowns

After publishers won an injunction stopping IA’s digital lending, which “limits what we can do with our digitized books,” IA’s help page said, the open library started shrinking. While “removed books are still available to patrons with print disabilities,” everyone else has been cut off, causing many books in IA’s collection to show up as “Borrow Unavailable.”

Ever since, IA has been “inundated” with inquiries from readers all over the world searching for the removed books, Freeland said. And “we get tagged in social media every day where people are like, ‘why are there so many books gone from our library’?” Freeland told Ars.

In an open letter to publishers signed by nearly 19,000 supporters, IA fans begged publishers to reconsider forcing takedowns and quickly restore access to the lost books.

Among the “far-reaching implications” of the takedowns, IA fans counted the negative educational impact of academics, students, and educators—”particularly in underserved communities where access is limited—who were suddenly cut off from “research materials and literature that support their learning and academic growth.”

They also argued that the takedowns dealt “a serious blow to lower-income families, people with disabilities, rural communities, and LGBTQ+ people, among many others,” who may not have access to a local library or feel “safe accessing the information they need in public.”

“Your removal of these books impedes academic progress and innovation, as well as imperiling the preservation of our cultural and historical knowledge,” the letter said.

“This isn’t happening in the abstract,” Freeland told Ars. “This is real. People no longer have access to a half a million books.”

Internet Archive forced to remove 500,000 books after publishers’ court win Read More »

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Mystery malware destroys 600,000 routers from a single ISP during 72-hour span

Biz & IT, ISPs, malware, routers, Security, Uncategorized, wipers / /

PUMPKIN ECLIPSE —

An unknown threat actor with equally unknown motives forces ISP to replace routers.

–

Mystery malware destroys 600,000 routers from a single ISP during 72-hour span

Getty Images

One day last October, subscribers to an ISP known as Windstream began flooding message boards with reports their routers had suddenly stopped working and remained unresponsive to reboots and all other attempts to revive them.

“The routers now just sit there with a steady red light on the front,” one user wrote, referring to the ActionTec T3200 router models Windstream provided to both them and a next door neighbor. “They won’t even respond to a RESET.”

In the messages—which appeared over a few days beginning on October 25—many Windstream users blamed the ISP for the mass bricking. They said it was the result of the company pushing updates that poisoned the devices. Windstream’s Kinetic broadband service has about 1.6 million subscribers in 18 states, including Iowa, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Kentucky. For many customers, Kinetic provides an essential link to the outside world.

“We have 3 kids and both work from home,” another subscriber wrote in the same forum. “This has easily cost us $1,500+ in lost business, no tv, WiFi, hours on the phone, etc. So sad that a company can treat customers like this and not care.”

After eventually determining that the routers were permanently unusable, Windstream sent new routers to affected customers. Black Lotus has named the event Pumpkin Eclipse.

A deliberate act

A report published Thursday by security firm Lumen Technologies’ Black Lotus Labs may shed new light on the incident, which Windstream has yet to explain. Black Lotus Labs researchers said that over a 72-hour period beginning on October 25, malware took out more than 600,000 routers connected to a single autonomous system number, or ASN, belonging to an unnamed ISP.

While the researchers aren’t identifying the ISP, the particulars they report match almost perfectly with those detailed in the October messages from Windstream subscribers. Specifically, the date the mass bricking started, the router models affected, the description of the ISP, and the displaying of a static red light by the out-of-commission ActionTec routers. Windstream representatives declined to answer questions sent by email.

According to Black Lotus, the routers—conservatively estimated at a minimum of 600,000—were taken out by an unknown threat actor with equally unknown motivations. The actor took deliberate steps to cover their tracks by using commodity malware known as Chalubo, rather than a custom-developed toolkit. A feature built into Chalubo allowed the actor to execute custom Lua scripts on the infected devices. The researchers believe the malware downloaded and ran code that permanently overwrote the router firmware.

“We assess with high confidence that the malicious firmware update was a deliberate act intended to cause an outage, and though we expected to see a number of router make and models affected across the internet, this event was confined to the single ASN,” Thursday’s report stated before going on to note the troubling implications of a single piece of malware suddenly severing the connections of 600,000 routers.

The researchers wrote:

Destructive attacks of this nature are highly concerning, especially so in this case. A sizeable portion of this ISP’s service area covers rural or underserved communities; places where residents may have lost access to emergency services, farming concerns may have lost critical information from remote monitoring of crops during the harvest, and health care providers cut off from telehealth or patients’ records. Needless to say, recovery from any supply chain disruption takes longer in isolated or vulnerable communities.

After learning of the mass router outage, Black Lotus began querying the Censys search engine for the affected router models. A one-week snapshot soon revealed that one specific ASN experienced a 49 percent drop in those models just as the reports began. This amounted to the disconnection of at least 179,000 ActionTec routers and more than 480,000 routers sold by Sagemcom.

Black Lotus Labs

The constant connecting and disconnecting of routers to any ISP complicates the tracking process, because it’s impossible to know if a disappearance is the result of the normal churn or something more complicated. Black Lotus said that a conservative estimate is that at least 600,000 of the disconnections it tracked were the result of Chaluba infecting the devices and, from there, permanently wiping the firmware they ran on.

After identifying the ASN, Black Lotus discovered a complex multi-path infection mechanism for installing Chaluba on the routers. The following graphic provides a logical overview.

Black Lotus Labs

There aren’t many known precedents for malware that wipes routers en masse in the way witnessed by the researchers. Perhaps the closest was the discovery in 2022 of AcidRain, the name given to malware that knocked out 10,000 modems for satellite Internet provider Viasat. The outage, hitting Ukraine and other parts of Europe, was timed to Russia’s invasion of the smaller neighboring country.

A Black Lotus representative said in an interview that researchers can’t rule out that a nation-state is behind the router-wiping incident affecting the ISP. But so far, the researchers say they aren’t aware of any overlap between the attacks and any known nation-state groups they track.

The researchers have yet to determine the initial means of infecting the routers. It’s possible the threat actors exploited a vulnerability, although the researchers said they aren’t aware of any known vulnerabilities in the affected routers. Other possibilities are the threat actor abused weak credentials or accessed an exposed administrative panel.

An attack unlike any other

While the researchers have analyzed attacks on home and small office routers before, they said two things make this latest one stand out. They explained:

First, this campaign resulted in a hardware-based replacement of the affected devices, which likely indicates that the attacker corrupted the firmware on specific models. The event was unprecedented due to the number of units affected—no attack that we can recall has required the replacement of over 600,000 devices. In addition, this type of attack has only ever happened once before, with AcidRain used as a precursor to an active military invasion.

They continued:

The second unique aspect is that this campaign was confined to a particular ASN. Most previous campaigns we’ve seen target a specific router model or common vulnerability and have effects across multiple providers’ networks. In this instance, we observed that both Sagemcom and ActionTec devices were impacted at the same time, both within the same provider’s network.This led us to assess it was not the result of a faulty firmware update by a single manufacturer, which would normally be confined to one device model or models from a given company. Our analysis of the Censys data shows the impact was only for the two in question. This combination of factors led us to conclude the event was likely a deliberate action taken by an unattributed malicious cyber actor, even if we were not able to recover the destructive module.

With no clear idea how the routers came to be infected, the researchers can only offer the usual generic advice for keeping such devices free of malware. That includes installing security updates, replacing default passwords with strong ones, and regular rebooting. ISPs and other organizations that manage routers should follow additional advice for securing the management interfaces for administering the devices.

Thursday’s report includes IP addresses, domain names, and other indicators that people can use to determine if their devices have been targeted or compromised in the attacks.

Mystery malware destroys 600,000 routers from a single ISP during 72-hour span Read More »

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Linux maintainers were infected for 2 years by SSH-dwelling backdoor with huge reach

Biz & IT, ebury, Linux, openssh, secure shell, Security, SSH, Uncategorized / /

ONGOING LINUX THREAT —

Ebury backdoors SSH servers in hosting providers, giving the malware extraordinary reach.

–

A cartoon door leads to a wall of computer code.

Infrastructure used to maintain and distribute the Linux operating system kernel was infected for two years, starting in 2009, by sophisticated malware that managed to get a hold of one of the developers’ most closely guarded resources: the /etc/shadow files that stored encrypted password data for more than 550 system users, researchers said Tuesday.

The unknown attackers behind the compromise infected at least four servers inside kernel.org, the Internet domain underpinning the sprawling Linux development and distribution network, the researchers from security firm ESET said. After obtaining the cryptographic hashes for 551 user accounts on the network, the attackers were able to convert half into plaintext passwords, likely through password-cracking techniques and the use of an advanced credential-stealing feature built into the malware. From there, the attackers used the servers to send spam and carry out other nefarious activities. The four servers were likely infected and disinfected at different times, with the last two being remediated at some point in 2011.

Stealing kernel.org’s keys to the kingdom

An infection of kernel.org came to light in 2011, when kernel maintainers revealed that 448 accounts had been compromised after attackers had somehow managed to gain unfettered, or “root,” system access to servers connected to the domain. Maintainers reneged on a promise to provide an autopsy of the hack, a decision that has limited the public’s understanding of the incident.

Besides revealing the number of compromised user accounts, representatives of the Linux Kernel Organization provided no details other than saying that the infection:

  • Occurred no later than August 12, 2011, and wasn’t detected for another 17 days
  • Installed an off-the-shelf rootkit known as Phalanx on multiple servers and personal devices belonging to a senior Linux developer
  • Modified the files that both servers and end user devices inside the network used to connect through OpenSSH, an implementation of the SSH protocol for securing remote connections.

In 2014, ESET researchers said the 2011 attack likely infected kernel.org servers with a second piece of malware they called Ebury. The malware, the firm said, came in the form of a malicious code library that, when installed, created a backdoor in OpenSSH that provided the attackers with a remote root shell on infected hosts with no valid password required. In a little less than 22 months, starting in August 2011, Ebury spread to 25,000 servers. Besides the four belonging to the Linux Kernel Organization, the infection also touched one or more servers inside hosting facilities and an unnamed domain registrar and web hosting provider.

A 47-page report summarizing Ebury’s 15-year history said that the infection hitting the kernel.org network began in 2009, two years earlier than the domain was previously thought to have been compromised. The report said that since 2009, the OpenSSH-dwelling malware has infected more than 400,000 servers, all running Linux except for about 400 FreeBSD servers, a dozen OpenBSD and SunOS servers, and at least one Mac.

Researcher Marc-Etienne M. Léveillé wrote:

In our 2014 paper, we mentioned that there was evidence that kernel.org, hosting the source code of the Linux kernel, had been a victim of Ebury. Data now at our disposal reveals additional details about the incident. Ebury had been installed on at least four servers belonging to the Linux Foundation between 2009 and 2011. It seems these servers acted as mail servers, name servers, mirrors, and source code repositories at the time of the compromise. We cannot tell for sure when Ebury was removed from each of the servers, but since it was discovered in 2011 it is likely that two of the servers were compromised for as long as two years, one for one year and the other for six months.

The perpetrator also had copies of the /etc/shadow files, which overall contained 551 unique username and hashed password pairs. The cleartext passwords for 275 of those users (50%) are in possession of the attackers. We believe that the cleartext passwords were obtained by using the installed Ebury credential stealer, and by brute force.

The researcher said in an email that the Ebury and Phalanx infections appear to be separate compromises by two unrelated threat groups. Representatives of the Linux Kernel Organization didn’t respond to emails asking if they were aware of the ESET report or if its claims were accurate. There is no indication that either infection resulted in tampering with the Linux kernel source code.

Linux maintainers were infected for 2 years by SSH-dwelling backdoor with huge reach Read More »

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Google patches its fifth zero-day vulnerability of the year in Chrome

Biz & IT, chrome, Google, Security, Uncategorized, vulnerability, zero-day / /

MEMORY WANTS TO BE FREE —

Exploit code for critical “use-after-free” bug is circulating in the wild.

–

Extreme close-up photograph of finger above Chrome icon on smartphone.

Google has updated its Chrome browser to patch a high-severity zero-day vulnerability that allows attackers to execute malicious code on end user devices. The fix marks the fifth time this year the company has updated the browser to protect users from an existing malicious exploit.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-4671, is a “use after free,” a class of bug that occurs in C-based programming languages. In these languages, developers must allocate memory space needed to run certain applications or operations. They do this by using “pointers” that store the memory addresses where the required data will reside. Because this space is finite, memory locations should be deallocated once the application or operation no longer needs it.

Use-after-free bugs occur when the app or process fails to clear the pointer after freeing the memory location. In some cases, the pointer to the freed memory is used again and points to a new memory location storing malicious shellcode planted by an attacker’s exploit, a condition that will result in the execution of this code.

On Thursday, Google said an anonymous source notified it of the vulnerability. The vulnerability carries a severity rating of 8.8 out of 10. In response, Google said, it would be releasing versions 124.0.6367.201/.202 for macOS and Windows and 124.0.6367.201 for Linux in subsequent days.

“Google is aware that an exploit for CVE-2024-4671 exists in the wild,” the company said.

Google didn’t provide any other details about the exploit, such as what platforms were targeted, who was behind the exploit, or what they were using it for.

Counting this latest vulnerability, Google has fixed five zero-days in Chrome so far this year. Three of the previous ones were used by researchers in the Pwn-to-Own exploit contest. The remaining one was for a vulnerability for which an exploit was available in the wild.

Chrome automatically updates when new releases become available. Users can force the update or confirm they’re running the latest version by going to Settings > About Chrome and checking the version and, if needed, clicking on the Relaunch button.

Google patches its fifth zero-day vulnerability of the year in Chrome Read More »

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The Boys S4 trailer brings us more bloody mayhem and “Homelander on Ice”

culture, Entertainment, prime video, streaming television, The Boys, Uncategorized / /

Homelander still sucks —

“You will no longer be beloved celebrities. You will be wrathful gods. Show me a little wrath.”

–

The long-awaited fourth season of the Prime Video series, The Boys, premieres on June 13, 2024

Last summer’s Hollywood strikes delayed a number of releases, among them the fourth season of Prime Video’s The Boys. We’re longtime fans of this incredibly violent, darkly funny anti-homage to superheroes, and thus are thrilled to see there’s finally an official trailer for S4. It’s filled with the bloody mayhem we’ve come to expect from the show, as well as a tantalizing glimpse of the chief villain, Homelander (Antony Starr), performing in what appears to be an ice skating extravaganza.

(Spoilers for prior seasons below, especially S3.)

As I’ve written previously, the show is based on the comic book series of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. The Boys is set in a fictional universe where superheroes are real but are corrupted by corporate interests and a toxic celebrity-obsessed culture. The most elite superhero group is called the Seven, operated by the Vought Corporation, which created the supes with a substance called Compound V. The Seven is headed up by Homelander, a violent and unstable psychopath disguised as the All-American hero. Homelander’s counterpart as the head of the titular “Boys” is Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), a self-appointed vigilante intent on checking the bad behavior of the Seven—especially Homelander, who brutally raped Butcher’s wife, Becca (Shantel VanSanten), unknowingly fathering a son, Ryan, in the process..

Having discovered he had a son, Homelander turned Ryan against Butcher in S2, which ended with a bloody showdown that saw the demise of Becca as well as the mutilation of Homelander’s supe squeeze, Stormfront (Aya Cash), who turned out to be a Nazi disguised as a “patriot.” (She committed suicide in S3.) Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) and Starlight (Annie Moriarty) successfully blackmailed Homelander into loosening his bullying stranglehold on the Seven. Meanwhile, the government cleared the Boys of all wrongdoing after they were publicly smeared as terrorists. A disillusioned Hughie (Jack Quaid) decided to try to fight the Seven through politics rather than violence and went to work for Congressperson Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit)—but he didn’t know she’s actually a super-powered assassin with her own murderous agenda.

The third season introduced us to “Payback,” the name of an earlier Vought group of superheroes, loosely based on Marvel’s Avengers. Payback members include Eagle the Archer (Langston Kerman), who appeared in S2 of The Boys . He’s the one who recruited the Deep (Chace Crawford) and A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) to the Church of the Collective before the cult turned against him. By S3 he’d quit the superhero gig and was trying to become a rapper. We also met Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) and Crimson Countess (Laurie Holden), and an entire episode was devoted to one of the comic’s most shocking storylines: Herogasm, in which the Boys infiltrated Vought’s annual superhero party, which turned out to be just one long weekend of kinky sex and drug use on a secluded island.

The third season ended with Homelander killing one of Starlight’s supporters who attacked Ryan during a rally—and rather than being roundly condemned, the crowd cheered wildly, and Homelander realized just how few constraints there were on his psychopathic behavior. Soldier Boy (who turned out to be Homelander’s biological father) ended up in government custody, Maeve was presumed dead but actually just lost her powers, and Annie/Starlight left the Seven to join forces with The Boys. As for Butcher, he had been juicing with V24, a version of Compound V that temporarily gave humans super powers—at a price. By season’s end, Butcher realized he was dying.

That brings us to the fourth season. Per the official premise:

The world is on the brink. Victoria Neuman is closer than ever to the Oval Office and under the muscly thumb of Homelander, who is consolidating his power. Butcher, with only months to live, has lost Becca’s son and his job as The Boys’ leader. The rest of the team are fed up with his lies. With the stakes higher than ever, they have to find a way to work together and save the world before it’s too late.

The trailer opens with a presumably doomed Butcher doing some soul-searching about how he’s lived his life. “All I see are the messes I’ve made,” he says while we’re shown the scene where Ryan leaves with a smirking Homelander. “And I ain’t got time to fix it.”  He figures he has a chance to do one thing right but he needs The Boys’ help to succeed.

Meanwhile, Homelander is flaunting his power, insisting that the country “is corrupt beyond repair.” His plans for the country’s “salvation” naturally involve violence: doing terrible things “for the greater good.” So the Seven must now stop being beloved celebrities and instead become “wrathful gods.” Not everyone is on board with Homelander’s strategy, notably A-Train and Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie), but there’s not much they can do to stop the Supes from rounding up any recalcitrant humans and putting them in camps—or declaring “hunting season on Starlighters.”

Humanity’s only hope appears to rest in Butcher’s discovery of a virus that can kill Supes, first introduced in the spinoff series, Gen V. But first they’ll have to fight off violent superpowered chickens and livestock that have been injected with Compound V—and somehow avoid turning into the very evil they’re trying to defeat.

The first three episodes of The Boys S4 premieres on June 13, 2024, on Prime Video, with subsequent episodes airing each week until the finale on July 18, 2024.

Prime Video

Listing image by Prime Video

The Boys S4 trailer brings us more bloody mayhem and “Homelander on Ice” Read More »

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Fragments of bird flu virus genome found in pasteurized milk, FDA says

avian influenza, bird flu, CDC, cows, dairy cows, fda, flu, H5N1, Infectious disease, influenza, milk, pasteurization, Science, Uncategorized / /

Milk testing —

The test cannot tell if the virus is live. The FDA still assess milk supply as safe.

–

Cows being milked

Enlarge / Cows being milked

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday announced that genetic fragments from the highly-pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 have been detected in the pasteurized, commercial milk supply. However, the testing completed so far—using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)—only detects the presence of viral genetic material and cannot tell whether the genetic material is from live and infectious viral particles or merely remnants of dead ones killed by the pasteurization process.

Testing is now ongoing to see if viable, infectious H5N1 can be identified in milk samples.

So far, the FDA still believes that the milk supply is safe. “To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the agency said in a lengthy explanation of the finding and ongoing testing.

H5N1 made its startling jump to US dairy cows recently, with the first ever documented cases in a Texas herd confirmed on March 25. It has spread widely since then with at least 32 herds in eight states now known to be infected. The unexpected spread to bovines has raised fears that the virus is evolving to infect mammals more efficiently, and so poses a heightened risk of spread to and among humans.

But amid the alarming outbreak among the country’s dairy herds, federal agencies have appeared confident that the virus poses little risk to no risk to the safety of the milk supply.

“At this time, there continues to be no concern that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health, or that it affects the safety of the interstate commercial milk supply because products are pasteurized before entering the market” the FDA wrote in an FAQ published Friday. “Pasteurization has continually proven to inactivate bacteria and viruses, like influenza, in milk.”

In the announcement Tuesday, the FDA also highlighted that multiple studies have shown that the pasteurization process for eggs, which uses lower temperatures than what is used for milk, is effective at inactivating H5N1.

Nevertheless, the FDA, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Department of Agriculture, have continued to investigate potential risks, including establishing whether pasteurization can inactivate this specific virus. The FDA noted in its announcement Tuesday that, while pasteurization is expected to kill the virus, pasteurization is “different than complete sterilization.”

As such, it carried out the qPCR tests, expecting it might find some genetic fragments in the pasteurized milk because virus has been detected in raw milk. “Based on available information, pasteurization is likely to inactivate the virus, however the process is not expected to remove the presence of viral particles,” the FDA explained. “Therefore, some of the samples collected have indicated the presence of HPAI [Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza] using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) testing.”

The FDA did not indicate how many samples it has tested, where the samples were collected from, or the level of viral genetic material the samples contained.

The agency is now working on assessing whether it can identify if any virus particles are infectious using egg inoculation tests, which are considered a gold-standard for determining viral viability. It added that it will release results from those tests and others in “the next few days to weeks.”

“[W]e take this current situation and the safety of the milk supply very seriously. We recognize the importance of releasing further, actionable information,” the FDA said.

Meanwhile, the agency reported that the CDC’s food safety group has been closely monitoring emergency department data and flu testing data for any unusual trends in flu-like illness, flu, or conjunctivitis, which could indicate spread of H5N1 to people. “To date, surveillance systems do not show any unusual trends or activity,” the FDA said.

Fragments of bird flu virus genome found in pasteurized milk, FDA says Read More »

cnn,-record-holder-for-shortest-streaming-service,-wants-another-shot

CNN, record holder for shortest streaming service, wants another shot

CNN, News, streaming, Tech, Uncategorized, warner bros. discovery / /

CNN++? —

New CNN head thinks CNN+ “was abandoned rather briskly.” 

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: The logo of the US tv channel CNN is shown on the display of a smartphone on April 22, 2020

On March 29, 2022, CNN+, CNN’s take on a video streaming service, debuted. On April 28, 2022, it shuttered, making it the fastest shutdown of any launched streaming service. Despite that discouraging superlative, CNN has plans for another subscription-based video streaming platform, Financial Times (FT) reported on Wednesday.

Mark Thompson, who took CNN’s helm in August 2023, over a year after CNN+’s demise, spoke with FT about evolving the company. The publication reported that Thompson is “working on plans for a digital subscription streaming service.” The executive told the publication that a digital subscription, including digital content streaming, is “a serious possibility,” adding, “no decisions had been made, but I think it’s quite likely that we’ll end up there.”

CNN++, or whatever a new CNN streaming package might be named, would not just be another CNN+, per Thompson.

“We’ll know in a few years time if we’re beginning to make progress, even if that still doesn’t look like it because of the aggregation of declining platforms and growing ones,” he said, requesting patience regarding the next chapter in CNN streaming.

Thompson noted that success “won’t happen overnight,” which suggests a slow timeline.

CNN+’s short ride

Thompson told FT that CNN+ was “a big, bold experiment which was abandoned rather briskly.”

Company executives discussed plans for a CNN streaming service as early as December 2020, and in May 2021, employees learned that CNN+ was happening, Deadline reported. By July 2021, CNN confirmed the plans publicly.

But under a year later, CNN+ was no longer available, with the closure largely viewed as a casualty of parent company WarnerMedia merging with Discovery to form Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) 10 days after CNN+’s launch. The merger meant CNN now had a parent company that already owned the Discovery+ streaming service and HBO Max; it also had interest in merging Discovery content with that of HBO. In August 2022, a few months after CNN+ closed, WBD announced Max as its flagship streaming service, merging what was formerly HBO Max with Discovery+.

“In a complex streaming market, consumers want simplicity and an all-in[-one] service which provides a better experience and more value than stand-alone offerings,” Discovery’s streaming boss J.B. Perrette said in statement regarding CNN+’s closure.

CNN+ accrued high-profile news anchors, and in its three weeks of availability, it had an estimated subscriber count of 100,000–150,000, according to Variety, which reported that the early figure put the streaming service on track for year-one quotas. However, CNBC later reported that daily viewership was just around 4,000, citing an anonymous source.

In an internal meeting, Perrette showed “frustration” that CNN moved forward with CNN+’s rollout despite its parent company’s merger plans, according to CNN. Perrette reportedly told employees that “some of this was avoidable.” CNN’s report noted that during the merger process, Discovery executives were not legally allowed to communicate with CNN executives.

CNN+’s 29-day existence makes it the shortest-lived streaming service. It took the record from Quibi, which launched in April 8, 2020, and announced on October 21, 2020, that it was throwing in the towel (Roku eventually bought Quibi for cheap).

CNN, record holder for shortest streaming service, wants another shot Read More »

bodies-found-in-neolithic-pit-were-likely-victims-of-ritualistic-murder

Bodies found in Neolithic pit were likely victims of ritualistic murder

anthropology, Archaeology, cultural evolution, forensic archaeology, neolithic, ritual sacrifice, Science, Uncategorized / /

murder most foul —

One victim may have been hogtied alive in pit, à la Mafia-style ligature strangulation.

–

View taken from the upper part of the 255 storage pit showing the three skeletons, with one individual in a central position

Enlarge / Three female skeletons found in a Neolithic storage pit in France show signs of ritualistic human sacrifice.

. Beeching/Ludes et al., 2024

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of two women in a Neolithic tomb in France, with the positioning of the bodies suggesting they may have been ritualistically murdered by asphyxia or self-strangulation, according to a recent paper published in the journal Science Advances.

(WARNING: graphic descriptions below.)

France’s Rhône Valley is home to several archaeological sites dating to the end of the Middle Neolithic period (between 4250 and 3600/3500 BCE in the region); the sites include various storage silos, broken grindstones, imported ceramics, animal remains (both from communal meals and sacrifices), and human remains deposited in sepulchral pits. Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux is one such site.

According to Bertrand Ludes of the Université Paris Cité and his co-authors, the remains of the three women were found in Pit 69, a structure aligned with the summer and winter solstices, as was often the case in ancient agrarian societies. But the body positioning was decidedly atypical. One woman (No. 1), around age 50, was in the center of the pit, reclining on her side with a vase near her head. The other two bodies were just beneath an overhang. Woman No. 2 was on her back, legs bent, with a piece of grindstone placed on her skull. Woman No. 3 was in a prone position, knees bent, with her neck on the thorax of Woman No. 2 and two chunks of grindstone placed on her back.

The unusual positions imply a forceful, deliberate placement, according to the authors, suggesting they died in the pit rather than being tossed in after death. As for the cause of death, the archaeological evidence combined with recent forensic studies suggests “homicidal ligature strangulation” and “forced positional asphyxia”—at least for two of the three women. Woman No. 2, for example, would have struggled to breathe on her back, especially with the weight of Woman No. 3 pressing down on her neck (positional asphyxia), further exacerbated by the placement of the grindstone fragment.

Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux and the area surrounding pits 69 and 70.

Enlarge / Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux and the area surrounding pits 69 and 70.

Ludes et al., Sci. Adv. 10, eadl3374 (2024)

Woman No. 3’s prone position would mean she also would have struggled to breathe, and the volume of blood pumped by the heart would have sharply decreased, leading to cardiac arrest, a form of positional asphyxia now known as “prone restraint cardiac arrest.” All these clinical terms don’t quite capture the horrifically cruel nature of the manner of death. Given the placement of the woman’s knees—bent at more than a 90-degree angle, making the legs almost vertical—it’s possible she was tied up lying on her stomach, with the ligature connecting her ankles to her neck (similar to being hog-tied). In this position, “self-strangulation becomes inevitable,” the authors wrote, particularly if the mouth and nose are obstructed or there is cervical compression—say, from the strategic placement of grindstone fragments.

This form of torture, known as incaprettamento, has been used by the Italian Mafia, per Ludes et al., often to punish traitors, and dates as far back as the Italian Mesolithic era, “suggesting a highly ancient origin within ceremonial sites.” Sometimes, the victim would be strangled and the body tied up postmortem before the remains were disposed of. Ludes et al. believe Woman No. 3 would probably have been placed in the burial pit and tied up while still alive before self-strangling to death.

  • Reconstruction of the remains, blocked under the overhang of the wall of the storage pit lined with straw.

    Ludes et al., Sci. Adv. 10, eadl3374 (2024)

  • Reconstruction of skeletal remains for Woman No. 2 positioned on her back with bent knees.

    Ludes et al., Sci. Adv. 10, eadl3374 (2024)

  • Reconstruction of skeletal remains for Woman No. 3 in a prone position on her stomach with bent knees. The feet are behind the pelvis/toward the lower back, and the hands are tied behind the back.

    Ludes et al., Sci. Adv. 10, eadl3374 (2024)

  • Mesolithic rock art scene from the Addaura Cave is believed to depict ritual sacrifice by ligature strangulation (bolded figure).

    B. Ludes et al., 2024

In fact, one scene from Mesolithic rock art found in the Addaura Cave in Sicily, Italy, seems to depict a ritual sacrifice by ligature strangulation. There are 11 human figures and the figure of a slain deer. Nine of the human figures form a circle, within which are the other two human figures (male, judging by the erect genitalia). Those figures are shown lying on their stomachs in a prone position, legs folded beneath them, with a rope stretched between their ankles and necks. The erect male genitalia, and one figure drawn with his tongue hanging out, are both signs of strangulation or hanging, per the authors.

It is notoriously difficult to distinguish between a merely violent death and one with ritualistic overtones when it comes to prehistoric remains. So Ludes et al. combed through existing literature for reports of similar cases. They found 20 cases of probable ligature strangulation or positional asphyxia in total across 14 different archaeological sites in Eastern Europe and Catalonia, spanning nearly 2,000 years. The individuals were found lying on their backs or sides, lower limbs flexed until the feet aligned with the pelvis, indicating hip extension. The oldest remains were found at sites in the Czech Republic and date back to between 5400 and 4800 BCE; the three women found at Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux are the most recent.

The latter site in particular has elements that “suggest a profound interconnection between religious systems and power structure in an agricultural society,” the authors concluded—namely, various structures aligned with summer and winter solstices indicative of an agricultural cycle and the placement of two women facing the central woman. It’s unclear why the women were sacrificed, the authors added, but such ritualistic sacrifice likely developed across central and southern Europe sometime in the Mesolithic and evolved over the course of two millennia before culminating in the late Middle Neolithic.

Science Advances, 2024. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adl3374  (About DOIs).

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It turns out that Odysseus landed on the Moon without any altimetry data

Features, lunar lander, odysseus, Science, Space, Uncategorized / /
Intuitive Machines' <em>Odysseus</em> lander is shown shortly before touching down on the Moon. ” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IM-1-800×600.jpg”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander is shown shortly before touching down on the Moon.

Intuitive Machines

HOUSTON—Steve Altemus beamed with pride on Tuesday morning as he led me into Mission Control for the Odysseus lander, which is currently operating on the Moon and returning valuable scientific data to Earth. A team of about a dozen operators sat behind consoles, attempting to reset a visual processing unit onboard the lunar lander, one of their last, best chances to deploy a small camera that would snap a photo of Odysseus in action.

“I just wanted you to see the team,” he said.

The founder and chief executive of Intuitive Machines, which for a few days this month has been the epicenter of the spaceflight universe after landing the first commercial vehicle on the Moon, invited me to the company’s nerve center in Houston to set some things straight.

“You can say whatever you want to say,” Altemus said. “But from my perspective, this is an absolute success of a mission. Holy crap. The things that you go through to fly to the Moon. The learning, just every step of the way, is tremendous.”

Altemus will participate in a news conference on Wednesday at Johnson Space Center to provide a fuller perspective of the journey of Odysseus to the Moon and all those learnings. But I got the sense he invited me to the company’s offices Tuesday because he was itching to tell someone—to tell the world—that although Odysseus had toppled over after touching down, the mission was, in his words, an absolute success.

After more than an hour of speaking with Altemus, I believe him.

Odysseus is a beastly machine, and the team flying it isn’t shabby, either. They have certainly busted their asses. The offices in south Houston were littered with the remains of junk food, coffee, and other elixirs of long nights and wracked brains. It’s all been a whirlwind, no doubt. Next to a bag of tortilla chips, there was a bottle of Ibuprofen.

Coming in blind

As has been previously reported, Intuitive Machines discovered that the range finders on Odysseus were inoperable a couple of hours before it was due to attempt to land on the Moon last Thursday. This was later revealed to be due to the failure to install a pencil-sized pin and a wire harness that enabled the laser to be turned on and off. As a result, the company scrambled to rewrite its software to take advantage of three telescopes on a NASA payload, the Navigation Doppler Lidar for Precise Velocity and Range Sensing, for altimetry purposes.

While this software patch mostly worked, Altemus said Tuesday that the flight computer onboard Odysseus was unable to process data from the NASA payload in real time. Therefore, the last accurate altitude reading the lander received came when it was 15 kilometers above the lunar surface—and still more than 12 minutes from touchdown.

That left the spacecraft, which was flying autonomously, to rely on its optical navigation cameras. By comparing imagery data frame by frame, the flight computer could determine how fast it was moving relative to the lunar surface. Knowing its initial velocity and altitude prior to initiating powered descent and using data from the inertial measurement unit (IMU) on board Odysseus, it could get a rough idea of altitude. But that only went so far.

“So we’re coming down to our landing site with no altimeter,” Altemus said.

Unfortunately, as it neared the lunar surface, the lander believed it was about 100 meters higher relative to the Moon than it actually was. So instead of touching down with a vertical velocity of just 1 meter per second and no lateral movement, Odysseus was coming down three times faster and with a lateral speed of 2 meters per second.

“That little geometry made us hit a little harder than we wanted to,” he said.

But all was not lost. Based upon data downloaded from the spacecraft and imagery from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which flew over the landing site, Intuitive Machines has determined that the lander came down to the surface and likely skidded. This force caused one of its six landing legs to snap. Then, for a couple of seconds, the lander stood upright before toppling over due to the failed leg.

The company has an incredible photo of this moment showing the lander upright, with the snapped leg and the engine still firing. Altemus plans to publicly release this photo Wednesday.

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ULA chief says Vulcan rocket will slip to 2024 after ground system issues

rockets, Science, Space, ula, Uncategorized, vulcan / /

ULA delay —

The Colorado-based launch company will end 2023 with just three launches.

–

ULA's Vulcan rocket rolls to the launch pad for testing.

Enlarge / ULA’s Vulcan rocket rolls to the launch pad for testing.

United Launch Alliance

United Launch Alliance will not see the debut of its next-generation Vulcan rocket in 2023, as previously planned.

The launch company’s chief executive, Tory Bruno, announced the delay on the social media site X on Sunday. United Launch Alliance had been working toward a debut flight of the lift booster on Christmas Eve, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Bruno made the announcement after the company attempted to complete a fueling test of the entire rocket, known as a wet dress rehearsal.

“Vehicle performed well,” Bruno wrote. “Ground system had a couple of (routine) issues, (being corrected). Ran the timeline long so we didn’t quite finish. I’d like a FULL WDR before our first flight, so XMAS eve is likely out. Next Peregrine window is 8 Jan.”

Peregrine is the rocket’s primary payload, a lunar lander built by Astrobotic that is intended to deliver scientific experiments for NASA and other payloads the Moon. It has specific launch windows in order to reach the Moon and attempt a landing during ideal lighting conditions.

From the information contained in Bruno’s comment, it appears as though the work to correct the ground systems to fuel Vulcan—the first stage propellant is methane, which United Launch Alliance has not worked with before—will take long enough that it will preclude another fueling test ahead of the rocket’s late December launch window. Thus, the next launch attempt will likely occur no earlier than January 8.

A light cadence

It has been a slow year for United Launch Alliance, which dominated the US launch industry a decade ago. The company is going to launch just three rockets this calendar year: the classified NROL-68 mission on a Delta IV Heavy rocket in June, the “Silentbarker” mission for the National Reconnaissance Office on an Atlas V in September, and two Project Kuiper satellites for Amazon on an Atlas V in October.

That is the company’s lowest total number of launches since its founding in 2006, when the rocket businesses of Lockheed Martin and Boeing were merged.

Part of the reason for the low total is that United Launch Alliance is undergoing a transition from its historical fleet of Delta and Atlas rockets to Vulcan, which is intended to be more price competitive with other commercial offerings, such as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. There will be a lot of demand for Vulcan once it starts flying regulary.

However, another factor is that the lower cost and equally reliable Falcon rockets have taken commercial and government launch business away from United Launch Alliance. SpaceX has steadily ascended over the last decade as United Launch Alliance has struggled to compete.

Whereas Bruno’s company launched just three rockets in 2023, on a handful of occasions SpaceX has launched three rockets in three days during this calendar year. SpaceX is likely to end the year with between 95 and 100 total launches.

ULA chief says Vulcan rocket will slip to 2024 after ground system issues Read More »

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Edifier Honored with Four CES Innovation Awards at CES 2022

audio, ces2022, edifier, Highlights, mc500, Uncategorized / /

December 30, 2021• by

Edifier, the award-winning manufacturer of premium sound systems and bookshelf speakers, today announces that four of their newest products, the NeoBuds Pro true wireless earbuds, MC500 sound console, MP230 portable speaker and M100 Plus portable waterproof speaker, were selected as Innovation Award Honorees for CES 2022.

“This is an immense honor for the brand as we always strive to provide our consumers with cutting edge technology and sound design all at a price point that they can afford,” says Edifier’s CTO, Stanley Wen. “With our years of research within the audio industry, bringing consumers high quality audio products has always been part of our core values. We also seek to remain at the forefront and incorporate the latest technology and features into each of our products for the purest sounds in their respective classes.”

In the $138 Billion global audio market, Edifier’s team of research and design experts always put the consumer’s needs first. As hybrid work environments continue to proliferate, the need for premium headphones and portable speakers are at an all-time high. The NeoBuds Pro are one of the first ever hi-res audio certified true wireless earbuds on the market, which provides users everything they need for a remote work environment. Whether in the office, at home or on the go,

the earbuds’ six microphone setup combined with its active noise cancelling performance of up to 42dB, the NeoBuds Pro provides crystal clear audio for any one-on-one or conference call while also detecting and eliminating all interfering noises.

Within the speaker category, The MP230 and M100 Plus were created to better fit consumers

with varying needs. The MP230 seamlessly blends portability with the design and technology of wood-framed bookshelf speakers, creating unrivaled soundscapes that can match nearly any aesthetic.

For those with a more adventurous spirit, the M100 Plus provides high quality sound with minimum distortion in a portable, palm sized package. With its durable, double woven lanyard and IPX7 rating, the M100 Plus are the waterproof portable speakers that you will want attached to yourself or bag on your next outing.

With the brand also continuing to expand its audio services, Edifier is showcasing its first ever livesteaming sound console and mixer to further assist streamers with their audio needs. As the MC500’s innovative design matches any streamer’s aesthetic, now sound effects, audio control and more are all at the steamer’s disposal, allowing for a more integrated, intuitive and interactive

livestream.

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Last modified: November 10, 2021

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