Yet another international cop shop has come out swinging against end-to-end encryption - this time it's Europol which is urging an end to implementation of the tech for fear police investigations will be hampered by protected DMs. The Register: In a joint declaration of European police chiefs published over the weekend, Europol said it needs lawful access to private messages, and said tech companies need to be able to scan them (ostensibly impossible with E2EE implemented) to protect users. Without such access, cops fear they won't be able to prevent "the most heinous of crimes" like terrorism, human trafficking, child sexual abuse material (CSAM), murder, drug smuggling and other crimes. "Our societies have not previously tolerated spaces that are beyond the reach of law enforcement, where criminals can communicate safely and child abuse can flourish," the declaration said. "They should not now." The joint statement, which was agreed to in cooperation with the UK's National Crime Agency, isn't exactly making a novel claim. It's nearly the same line of reasoning that the Virtual Global Taskforce, an international law enforcement group founded in 2003 to combat CSAM online, made last year when Meta first first started talking about implementing E2EE on Messenger and Instagram.

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Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories, according to reliable Apple leaker and prototype collector known as "Kosutami." From a report: In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kosutami explained that Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories due to its poor durability. The company may move to another non-leather material for its premium accessories in the future. Apple introduced FineWoven, a soft fabric material, last year. The company claimed that the material is made of 68 percent post-consumer content and is overall more environmentally friendly compared to the company's previous line of leather accessories. As part of the introduction of FineWoven case, Apple also discontinued the use of leather for new Apple accessories. Reviewers didn't like FineWoven, calling it "bad. Like, really bad."

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The Reg accepts no responsibility for borked installations

Worried about Windows 11 bloat and want a bit more control over what goes into its ISOs? Over the weekend, a new version of Tiny11 Builder in PowerShell guise arrived.…

Submitted for code review this weekend was a new MSI WMI Platform driver that was developed via reverse engineering MSI laptops. Initially this MSI WMI Platform driver is just exposing fan speed sensors but ultimately can be more useful for other Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) features...

President Joe Biden travels to Triangle, Virginia, Monday to mark Earth Day, where he'll unveil $7 billion in grant funding for solar power under the Inflation Reduction Act and announce new steps to stand up his administration's American Climate Corps -- a program popular with youth climate groups. From a report: The announcements come days after the Biden administration made several significant conservation announcements, including barring oil drilling on nearly half of the national petroleum reserve in Alaska. Under the Environmental Protection Agency's Solar for All program, the administration will announce funding awards to states territories, tribal governments, municipalities and nonprofits "to develop long-lasting solar programs that are targeted towards the communities and people who need them most," EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe told reporters. Per McCabe, the funding will enable nearly one million households in low-income and disadvantaged communities to benefit from solar power, saving more than $350 million in electric costs annually and more than $8 billion over the life of the program for overburdened households.

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Don't bore us, get to the chorus: You need less privacy so we can protect the children

Yet another international cop shop has come out swinging against end-to-end encryption - this time it's Europol which is urging an end to implementation of the tech for fear police investigations will be hampered by protected DMs.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: To accommodate tech companies' pivots to artificial intelligence, tech companies are increasingly investing in ways to power AI's immense electricity needs. Most recently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman invested in Exowatt, a company using solar power to feed data centers, according to the Wall Street Journal. That's on the heals of OpenAI partner, Microsoft, working on getting approval for nuclear energy to help power its AI operations. Last year Amazon, which is a major investor in AI company Anthropic, said it invested in more than 100 renewable energy projects, making it the "world's largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy for the fourth year in a row."

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KDE edition has the most conspicuous changes, and could become future flagship

Fedora 40 is in the final stretch before launch tomorrow, with release candidate 1.14 in testing.…

Prosecutors believe one frikkin' laser did make its way to Beijing

Germany has arrested three citizens who allegedly tried to transfer military technology to China, a violation of the country's export rules.…

While there is a growing number of PCIe 5.0 consumer NVMe SSDs available through Internet retailers, when it comes to PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD data center / enterprise grade solid-state drives there aren't as many yet and even for announced ones they have been relatively in short supply. In preparing for some upcoming Ubuntu 24.04 LTS tests and ahead of next-gen servers arriving, I was recently searching for some new PCIe 5.0 data center solid state drives. Arriving so far are the Kioxia KCD8XPUG1T92 CD8P-R and Kioxia KCMYXVUG3T20 CM7-V PCIe 5 SSDs. Here are a few benchmarks of those drives for those curious about the performance.

A military court in Moscow on Monday sentenced Meta spokesperson Andy Stone to six years in prison for "publicly defending terrorism," a verdict handed down in absentia, RIA news agency reported. Reuters: Meta itself is designated an extremist organisation in Russia and its Facebook and Instagram social media platforms have been banned in the country since 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. [...] Russia's interior ministry opened a criminal investigation into Stone late last year, without disclosing specific charges. RIA cited state investigators as saying Stone had published online comments that defended "aggressive, hostile and violent actions" towards Russian soldiers involved in what Moscow calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine.

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LGBTQ+ dating app's maker previously denied selling sensitive user data

Hundreds have joined a UK class action lawsuit against LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr, seeking damages over a historical case of the company allegedly forwarding users' HIV status as well as other sensitive data to third-party advertisers.…

Abstract of a paper on National Bureau of Economic Research: Physicians commonly receive marketing-related transfers from drug firms. We examine the impact of these relationships on the prescribing of physician-administered cancer drugs in Medicare. We find that prescribing of the associated drug increases 4\% in the twelve months after a payment is received, with the increase beginning sharply in the month of payment and fading out within a year. A marketing payment also leads physicians to begin treating cancer patients with lower expected mortality. While payments result in greater expenditure on cancer drugs, there are no associated improvements in patient mortality.

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Riveting conclusion to Tesla recall saga

While the vast majority of recent Tesla recalls have been addressed with over-the-air updates, the fix for Cybertruck's recalcitrant acceleration pedal necessitates a rare venture into meatspace. And it's as underwhelming as it is simple.…

The Audacity open-source digital audio editor is out today with a big feature update in the form of Audacity 3.5...

A patch is undergoing work to add Steam Deck IMU support to the HID-Steam kernel driver for supporting the accelerometer and gyroscope sensors of the Steam Deck controller...

North Korean animators have been secretly working on major international TV shows, including an Amazon superhero series and an upcoming HBO Max children's anime, according to a report by cybersecurity researchers. The findings, detailed in a report by the Stimson Center think tank's 38 North Project and Google-owned security firm Mandiant, provide a glimpse into how North Korea can use skilled IT workers to raise funds for its heavily sanctioned regime. Researcher Nick Roy discovered a misconfigured cloud server on a North Korean IP address in December, containing thousands of animation files, including cells, videos, and notes discussing ongoing projects. Some images appeared to be from Amazon's "Invincible" and HBO Max's "Iyanu: Child of Wonder." The server, which mysteriously stopped being used at the end of February, likely allowed work to be sent to and from North Korean animators, according to Martyn Williams, a senior fellow on the 38 North Project. U.S. sanctions prohibit companies from working with North Korean entities, but the researchers say it is unlikely that the companies involved were aware of the animators' origins. The report suggests the contracting arrangement was several steps removed from the major producers.

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Meta insists it's just misunderstood and it's safe to talk to citizens over FB

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) has warned that government organizations should not use Facebook to communicate with the country's citizens unless they can guarantee the privacy of data.…

Which one of you is already running 100-plus kilowatt racks?

Survey  As CPUs and GPUs grow ever denser and power-hungry, many, including Register readers, expect liquid cooling to play a larger role in enterprise datacenters over the next few years.…

Sadly no push to end stupid TikTok dances, but ByteDance would have year to offload app stateside

Fresh US legislation to force the sale of TikTok locally was passed in Washington over the weekend after an earlier version stalled in the Senate.…