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ISS

Russia Threatens Suspending Space Station Cooperation Over Sanctions (engadget.com) 95

"Russia's Roscosmos will stop working with NASA and other western space agencies on the International Space Station," reports Engadget: On early Saturday morning, Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin slammed international sanctions against Russia and said normal cooperation between the space agency and its western counterparts would only be possible after they were lifted.... Rogozin said Roscosmos would submit proposals on ending its work with NASA and other international space agencies to Russian authorities.

It's unclear how the decision would affect the space station. The ISS is not owned by any single country. The US, European Union, Russia, Canada and Japan operate the station through a cooperative agreement between the countries. Roscosmos, however, is critical to the ISS. The Russian Orbital Segment handles guidance control for the entire station....

The ISS isn't the first joint space program to see its future thrown into uncertainty due to rising tensions between the West and Russia. In March, Roscosmos said it would not ferry OneWeb's internet satellites to space until the UK government sold its stake in the company. That same month, the European Space Agency announced it was suspending its joint ExoMars mission with Roscosmos.

But in the middle of all this, "There are currently seven astronauts onboard the ISS — three Russian cosmonauts, three NASA astronauts and one German-born ESA astronaut, Matthias Maurer..." reports UPI: The three Russian cosmonauts are Sergey Korsakov, Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev. It was not immediately clear how the suspension of cooperation would impact the cosmonauts at the ISS.

Artemyev has expressed support for Russia and its decision to invade Ukraine in a statement made last month after he boarded the space station in a yellow and blue uniform, the colors of the Ukrainian flag. "There is no need to look for secret signs and symbols in our uniform. Color is just color," he said. "Despite the fact that we are in space, we are together with our president and people!"

Crime

Twitter User Sentenced To 150 Hours of Community Service In UK For Posting 'Offensive' Tweet (theverge.com) 108

A Twitter user from the UK named Joseph Kelly has been sentenced to 150 hours of community service for posting a "grossly offensive" tweet about Captain Sir Tom Moore, a British Army officer who raised money for the NHS during the pandemic. The Verge reports: Moore became a national figure in the UK after walking 100 laps around his garden before his 100th birthday. He was later knighted by the Queen. The day after his death, Kelly, 36, tweeted "the only good Brit soldier is a deed one, burn auld fella buuuuurn." Kelly was found guilty in February last year and faced possible jail time. His case brought attention to an often-criticized piece of UK legislation that allows social media users to be prosecuted for sending "grossly offensive" messages.

As reported by The National, Kelly was sentenced on Wednesday. His defense argued that Kelly had few followers on Twitter at the time; that he had been drinking before writing the post; and that he deleted the tweet just 20 minutes after sending it. "He accepts he was wrong. He did not anticipate what would happen. He took steps almost immediately to delete the tweet but the genie was out of the bottle by then," said Kelly's defence agent Tony Callahan. "His level of criminality was a drunken post, at a time when he was struggling emotionally, which he regretted and almost instantly removed." Kelly was sentenced to 18 months of supervision and 150 hours of unpaid work in the form of a Scottish Community Payback Order (CPO).

Medicine

Experts Push For Genetic Testing To Personalise Drug Prescriptions (theguardian.com) 27

Genetic testing to predict how individuals will respond to common medicines should be implemented without delay to reduce the risk of side-effects and ensure that everyone is given the right drug at the right dose, experts have said. From a report: About 6.5% of UK hospital admissions are caused by adverse drug reactions, while most prescription medicines only work on 30% to 50% of people. A significant part of this is due to genetics: almost 99% of people carry at least one genetic variation that affects their response to certain drugs, including commonly prescribed painkillers, heart disease drugs and antidepressants. By the age of 70, about 90% of people are taking at least one of these medications.

A new report, published by the British Pharmacological Society and the Royal College of Physicians, argues that many of these issues could be addressed through pharmacogenomic testing, which allows personalised prescribing according to people's genes. "The ultimate goal is to make pharmacogenomic prescribing a reality for everyone within the NHS, which will empower healthcare professionals to deliver better, more personalised care," said Sir Munir Pirmohamed, a professor of pharmacology and therapeutics at the University of Liverpool, who chaired the report's working party. "The aim of pharmacogenomics is to make sure patients get the right drug, at the right dose, at the right time to be able to improve their outcomes, treat their symptoms, cure their disease and prevent side-effects."

United Kingdom

Two UK Teenagers Charged With Hacking for Notorious Gang Lapsus$ (bbc.com) 7

Two teenagers from the UK have been charged by police over hacking for a notorious cyber-crime gang. From a report: A 16 and 17-year-old will appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court on Friday. The boys have been charged with multiple cyber-offences and remain in police custody. The teens were arrested as part of an international police investigation into the Lapsus$ gang, which is relatively new but much talked-about. The cyber-crime group successfully breached major firms like Microsoft, and then bragged about it online. Last week, the FBI launched an appeal for information about the people behind the hacking crew. According to Det Insp Michael O'Sullivan, from the City of London Police, both teenagers have been charged with three counts of unauthorised access to a computer with intent to impair the reliability of data, one count of fraud by false representation, and one count of unauthorised access to a computer with intent to hinder access to data.
Power

Give Free Power To People Living Near Wind Farms, UK Minister Suggests (independent.co.uk) 190

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: Energy bills for people living near onshore wind farms could be slashed under new reforms, according to a cabinet minister. Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi also suggested he supports more onshore wind farms but only if they are backed by the local community. Boris Johnson has committed to publishing a British energy security strategy although when asked about onshore wind farms, the Prime Minister stressed there is a "massive opportunity" for the UK with offshore wind.

Mr Zahawi told Sky's Sophy Ridge On Sunday program: "I would say that if we are going to make sure that we carry the will of local people, whether it's onshore wind or nuclear, we have to learn from how it's done well in other countries. "The way you do that is to make sure the local community has a real say. "But also we've seen great examples of other people where if they build a nuclear power station, within a certain radius of that power station they get free power. So it's right to look at innovation to make sure we wean ourselves off hydrocarbons, we have to do that, we have to do that well, part of that is making sure we look after the will of the local people." Mr Zahawi insisted there "isn't a row" around the Cabinet table about onshore wind.

Piracy

'Wordle' Creator Says Unauthorized Clones Drove Him to Selling His Game (msn.com) 60

In January the virally-popular game Wordle was sold to the New York Times for between between $1 million (£758,345) and $5 million. Now the Independent reveals why the game's creator took that step.

"Because so many people were cloning it and making money from it without his permission." Josh Wardle, a Welsh software engineer who now lives in Brooklyn, New York, said in a talk on Thursday that selling to the Times was "a way to walk away" from the pressure he felt to stop his creation being exploited.... The game's success inspired numerous smartphone apps that simply copied Mr Wardle's version while adding ads, in-app-purchases, or subscription fees, many of which were later removed from Apple's app store.

Speaking at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Mr Wardle said: "That isn't money that I would have made, because I said I don't want to make money, but something about that felt really deeply unpleasant for me. And so selling to the New York Times was a way for me to walk away from that. I didn't want to be paying a lawyer to issue cease and desists on the game that I'm not making money from. It felt like it was all going to get really, really complicated in a way that just [made me] pretty stressed out, truthfully."

Answering a question from The Independent after the talk, Mr Wardle added that he felt "an enormous amount of pressure" and a sense of limited time to act because so many people were trying to copy the game.

Besides the outright clones, Wordle has also led to some interesting variations, including Nerdle (which challenges players to guess the digits and symbols in an eight-digit equation).

There's Dordle (which challenges players to guess two words at the same time), as well as a four-word variation called Quordle, and even an eight-word version called Octordle.

In a recent article in Tom's Guide (titled "I don't like Wordle — but I love these alternatives") they also recommended Heardle and Framed. "The former tasks you with guessing a song based on a short audio clip, and the latter asks you to name a movie based on a single frame." (As well as Adverswordle, where you choose the word while an AI tries to guess it.)

And then there's the excruciatingly difficult Semantle...
Bitcoin

Russia Considers Accepting Bitcoin For Oil and Gas (bbc.com) 80

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Russia is considering accepting Bitcoin as payment for its oil and gas exports, according to a high-ranking lawmaker. Pavel Zavalny says "friendly" countries could be allowed to pay in the crypto-currency or in their local currencies. Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he wanted "unfriendly" countries to buy its gas with roubles. The move is understood to be aimed at boosting the Russian currency, which has lost over 20% in value this year. Sanctions imposed by the UK, US and the European Union, following the invasion of Ukraine, have put a strain on Russia's rouble and raised its cost of living.

Mr Zavalny, who heads Russia's State Duma committee on energy, said on Thursday that the country has been exploring alternative ways to receive payment for energy exports. He said China and Turkey were among "friendly" countries which were "not involved in the sanctions pressure." "We have been proposing to China for a long time to switch to settlements in national currencies for roubles and yuan," said Mr Zavalny. "With Turkey, it will be lira and roubles." Mr Zavalny added: "You can also trade bitcoins."

Analysts said Russia may benefit from accepting the popular cryptocurrency, despite the risks. "Russia is very quickly feeling the impact of unprecedented sanctions," said David Broadstock, a senior research fellow at the Energy Studies Institute in Singapore. "There is a need to shore up the economy and in many ways, Bitcoin is seen as a high growth asset." However, he noted that the value of Bitcoin has swung by as much as 30% this year. In comparison, the dollar has traded within 5% against the euro. "Clearly accepting Bitcoin, compared with other traditional currencies, introduces considerably more risk in the trade of natural gas," Mr Broadstock said. "Moreover, one of the major 'friendly' trade partners for Russia is China, and cryptocurrency is banned for use in China," he added. "This clearly limits potential for payment using Bitcoin."

Music

Music Improves Wellbeing and Quality of Life, Research Suggests (theguardian.com) 44

A review of 26 studies finds benefits of music on mental health are similar to those of exercise and weight loss. From a report: "Music," wrote the late neurologist Oliver Sacks, "has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation." A new analysis has empirically confirmed something that rings true for many music lovers -- that singing, playing or listening to music can improve wellbeing and quality of life. A review of 26 studies conducted across several countries including Australia, the UK and the US has found that music may provide a clinically significant boost to mental health. Seven of the studies involved music therapy, 10 looked at the effect of listening to music, eight examined singing and one studied the effect of gospel music. The analysis, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open, confirmed "music interventions are linked to meaningful improvements in wellbeing," as measured quantitatively via standardised quality-of-life survey data. The effects were similar whether participants sang, played or listened to music.
Crime

UK Police Arrest 7 People In Connection With Lapsus$ Hacks (techcrunch.com) 9

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Police in the United Kingdom have arrested seven people over suspected connections to the Lapsus$ hacking group, which has in recent weeks targeted tech giants including Samsung, Nvidia, Microsoft and Okta. In a statement given to TechCrunch, Detective Inspector Michael O'Sullivan from the City of London Police said: "The City of London Police has been conducting an investigation with its partners into members of a hacking group. Seven people between the ages of 16 and 21 have been arrested in connection with this investigation and have all been released under investigation. Our enquiries remain ongoing."

News of the arrests comes just hours after a Bloomberg report revealed a teenager based in Oxford, U.K. is suspected of being the mastermind of the now-prolific Lapsus$ hacking group. Four researchers investigating the gang's recent hacks said they believed the 16-year-old, who uses the online moniker "White" or "Breachbase," was a leading figure in Lapsus$, and Bloomberg was able to track down the suspected hacker after his personal information was leaked online by rival hackers. TechCrunch has seen a copy of the the suspected hacker's leaked personal information, which we are not sharing -- but it matches Bloomberg's reporting. City of London Police, which primarily focuses on financial crimes, did not say if the 16-year-old was among those arrested.

At least one member of Lapsus$ was also apparently involved with a recent data breach at Electronic Arts, according to [security reporter Brian Krebs], and another is suspected to be a teenager residing in Brazil. The latter is said to be so capable of hacking that researchers first believed that the activity they were witnessing was automated. Researchers' ability to track the suspected Lapsus$ members may be because the group, which now has more than 45,000 subscribers to its Telegram channel where it frequently recruits insiders and leaks victims' data, does little to cover its tracks. In a blog post this week, Microsoft said the group uses brazen tactics to gain initial access to a target organization, which has included publicly recruiting company insiders. As reported by Bloomberg this week, the group has even gone as far as to join the Zoom calls of companies they've breached and taunted employees trying to clean up their hack.

Space

UK-backed OneWeb To Use Rival SpaceX Rockets After Russian Ban (theguardian.com) 40

OneWeb, the satellite company part-owned by the British state, is turning to Elon Musk's SpaceX for help after it was barred from using Russian rockets to launch its latest orbiters. From a report: Under the arrangement, the communications firm will partner with SpaceX for its first launches later this year, adding to the 428 micro-satellites it already has in low-earth orbit. OneWeb and SpaceX did not disclose the terms of the launch arrangement. The company quotes a standard price of $67m to launch a Falcon 9 rocket â" up from $62m earlier this year, "to account for excessive levels of inflation." The 12% increase is the first in nearly six years. OneWeb was forced to abandon its plans to launch on one of Russia's Soyuz rockets earlier this month, after Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian space agency, demanded the satellites not be used for military purposes and the British government halt its financial backing.
Communications

What Happened After Starlink's Satellite Internet Service Arrived in Ukraine? (yahoo.com) 145

The Washington Post looks at what happened after Starlink activated its satellite-based internet service to help Ukraine: Ukraine has already received thousands of antennas from Musk's companies and European allies, which has proved "very effective," Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov said in an interview with The Washington Post Friday. "The quality of the link is excellent," Fedorov said through a translator, using a Starlink connection from an undisclosed location. "We are using thousands, in the area of thousands, of terminals with new shipments arriving every other day...." A person familiar with Starlink's effort in Ukraine, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said there are more than 5,000 terminals in the country....

Internet flows deteriorated on the first day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 and have not fully recovered, according to data-monitoring services. But since that initial dip, connectivity has remained fairly stable, with mainly temporary, isolated outages even during heavy Russian shelling. "Every day there are outages, but generally service comes back," said Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis for Kentik, which monitors global data flows.

Even before Fedorov tweeted at Musk for help, SpaceX was working on a way to get Starlink to Ukraine. President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said in a talk at California Institute of Technology this month that the company had been working for several weeks to get regulatory approval to allow the satellites to communicate in Ukraine.

In addition, the Washington Post reports, this week on Twitter Elon Musk also "challenged Putin to a fight and followed up by pledging he would use just one hand if Putin was scared. And he told Putin he could bring a bear." Reached for comment by the Post's reporters, Elon Musk responded by telling The Post to give his regards "to your puppet master Besos," following it with two emojis.

But the Post's article also argues Starlink's technology "could have widespread implications for the future of war. Internet has become an essential tool for communication, staying informed and even powering weapons." And The Telegraph reports that Starlink "is helping Ukrainian forces win the drone war as they use the technology in their effort to track and kill invading Russians." In the vanguard of Ukraine's astonishingly effective military effort against Vladimir Putin's forces is a unit called Aerorozvidka (Aerial Reconnaissance) which is using surveillance and attack drones to target Russian tanks and positions. Amid internet and power outages, which are expected to get worse, Ukraine is turning to the newly available Starlink system for some of its communications. Drone teams in the field, sometimes in badly connected rural areas, are able to use Starlink to connect them to targeters and intelligence on their battlefield database. They can direct the drones to drop anti-tank munitions, sometimes flying up silently to Russian forces at night as they sleep in their vehicles...

Should Ukraine's internet largely collapse, the "drone warriors" of Aerorozvidka would still be able to communicate with their bases by sending signals from mobile Starlink terminals, and using ground stations in neighbouring countries including Poland.... As Ukraine's internet is inevitably degraded, Starlink will be an alternative. General James Dickinson, commander of US Space Command, told the Senate armed services committee: "What we're seeing with Elon Musk and the Starlink capabilities is really showing us what a megaconstellation, or a proliferated architecture, can provide in terms of redundancy and capability."

It's not all Starlink. The Telegraph points out that "The Ukrainian system benefitted from equipment given by Western countries, including radio communications which superceded Soviet-era technology, and the US has also poured in millions of dollars to protect against Russian hacking, jamming of signals and attempts to 'spoof' GPS technology."

And meanwhile, weakness in Russia's own communications infrastructure may have played a role in the killing of five senior Russian generals in the last three weeks, according to a recent CNN interview with retired U.S. army general and former CIA director David Petraeus: "The bottom line is that [Russia's] command-and-control has broken down. Their communications have been jammed by the Ukranians.

Their secure comms didn't work. They had to go single-channel. That's jammable, and that's exactly what the Ukranians have been doing to that. They used cellphones. The Ukranians blocked the prefix for Russia, so that didn't work. Then they took down 3G. [The Russians] are literally stealing cellphones from Ukranian civilians to communicate among each other.

So what happens? The column gets stopped. An impatient general is sitting back there in his armored or whatever vehicle. He goes forward to find out what's going on... And the Ukranians have very, very good snipers, and they've just been picking them off left and right.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for submitting the story.
Open Source

False Advertising To Call Software Open Source When It's Not, Says Court (theregister.com) 20

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Last year, the Graph Foundation had to rethink how it develops and distributes its Open Native Graph Database (ONgDB) after it settled a trademark and copyright claim by database biz Neo4j. The Graph Foundation agreed [PDF] it would no longer claim specific versions of ONgDB, its Neo4j Enterprise Edition fork, are a "100 percent free and open source version" of Neo4J EE. And last month, two other companies challenged by Neo4j -- PureThink and iGov -- were also required by a court ruling to make similar concessions.

ONgDB is forked from Neo4j EE, which in May 2018 dropped the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) and adopted a new license that incorporates the AGPLv3 alongside additional limitations spelled out in the Commons Clause license. This new Neo4j EE license forbade non-paying users of the software from reselling the code or offering some support services, and thus is not open source as defined by the Open Source Initiative. The Graph Foundation, PureThink, and iGov offered ONgDB as a "free and open source" version of Neo4j in the hope of winning customers who preferred an open-source license. That made it more challenging for Neo4j to compete.

So in 2018 and 2019 Neo4j and its Swedish subsidiary pursued legal claims against the respective firms and their principals for trademark and copyright infringement, among other things. The Graph Foundation settled [PDF] in February 2021 as the company explained in a blog post. The organization discontinued support for ONgDB versions 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6. And it released ONgDB 1.0 in their place as a fork of AGPLv3 licensed Neo4j EE version 3.4.0.rc02. Last May, the judge hearing the claims against PureThink, and iGov granted Neo4j's motion for partial summary judgment [PDF] and forbade the defendants from infringing on the company's Neo4j trademark and from advertising ONgDB "as a free and open source drop-in replacement of Neo4j Enterprise Edition" The defendants appealed, and in February the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that the company's "statements regarding ONgDB as 'free and open source' versions of Neo4j EE are false."
"Stop saying Open Source when it's not," said the Open Source Initiative in a blog post. "The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed a lower court decision concluding what we've always known: that it's false advertising to claim that software is 'open source' when it's not licensed under an open source license."
ISS

Russia's Cosmonauts Arrive on the Space Station - Wearing Ukraine's Colors (space.com) 137

Three Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station last night for a six-month stay, writess the Times of London.

They were wearing flight suits "in the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag, in what appeared to be a daring statement against the war."

Space.com reports: Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, the Soyuz commander, was asked about the colors during a hatch-opening ceremony webcast by Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos. He responded (in Russian) that there was a surplus of yellow fabric in the warehouse, according to space exploration enthusiast Katya Pavlushchenko, who posted a Twitter thread about the exchange.

Not everybody's buying this answer, however. Some folks with knowledge of spaceflight procedures seem to think it could be a show of support for Ukraine, which Russia invaded on February 24.... There are other possible explanations for the flight suits as well. For example, multiple people on Twitter have pointed out that the colors are close to those of Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which Artemyev, Matveev and Korsakov all attended.

This is all just speculation; all we have to go on at the moment is Artemyev's cryptic response during the hatch-opening ceremony. Hopefully one of the cosmonauts will offer some more details in the not-too-distant future. None of the three newly arrived cosmonauts hails from Ukraine, by the way. Artemyev was born in present-day Latvia, Matveev is from St. Petersburg and Korsakov was born in what is now Kyrgyzstan.

Next month a SpaceX Dragon is expected to carry three millionaires to the Space Station for a week-long visit.
Crime

Tech Execs Could Face Jail Time Under Revised UK Online Safety Bill (zdnet.com) 60

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Proposed UK laws could see top managers at tech companies be jailed if they fail to meet the demands of regulators. The laws, coming in the form of an Online Safety Bill, were introduced to Parliament on Thursday after almost a year of consultation. The UK government commenced work on the proposed laws in May last year to push a duty of care onto social media platforms so that tech companies are forced to protect users from dangerous content, such as disinformation and online abuse.

Under the proposed legislation, executives of tech companies could face prosecution or jail time if they fail to cooperate with information notices issued by Ofcom, UK's communications regulator. Through the Bill, Ofcom would gain the power to issue information notices for the purpose of determining whether tech companies are performing their online safety functions. A raft of new offenses have also been added to the Bill, including making in-scope companies' senior managers criminally liable if they destroy evidence, fail to attend or provide false information in interviews with Ofcom, or obstruct the regulator when it enters company offices.

The Bill also looks to require social media platforms, search engines, and other apps and websites that allow people to post their own content to implement various measures to protect children, tackle illegal activity and uphold their stated terms and conditions. Among these measures are mandatory age checks for sites that host pornography, criminalizing cyberflashing, and a requirement for large social media platforms to give adults the ability to automatically block people who have not verified their identity on the platforms. The proposed laws, if passed, would also force social media platforms to up their moderation efforts, with the Bill calling for platforms to remove paid-for scam ads swiftly once they are alerted of their existence. A requirement for social media platforms to moderate "legal but harmful" content is also contained in the Bill, which will make large social media platforms have a duty to carry risk assessments on these types of content. Platforms will also have to set out clearly in terms of service how they will deal with such content and enforce these terms consistently.

Bitcoin

Binance Says Users In Ontario Restricted From Using Its Platform (reuters.com) 83

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has confirmed in an undertaking to the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) that it would stop opening new accounts for users in the Canadian province, the regulator said on Thursday. The dispute between Binance and OSC started in June last year, when the exchange announced its decision to quit Ontario after a regulatory crackdown on crypto exchanges in the province for allegedly failing to meet securities laws. However, in December, Binance notified investors that it was allowed to continue its operations in Ontario while still being unregistered in the province, the OSC said.

In the undertaking, Binance also made a slew of other commitments, including halting trading in existing Ontario accounts, with certain exceptions that the company said were necessary "to protect investors." The crypto exchange also offered to provide fee waivers and reimbursements to certain Ontario users, and said it would hire an independent third party to oversee the implementation of its commitments.

Technology

HSBC Buys Virtual Plot of Land in Digital Push (reuters.com) 28

HSBC is buying a plot of virtual real estate in an online gaming space called The Sandbox for an undisclosed sum, the bank's first major foray into the metaverse as it shrinks its UK branch network. From a report:The digital push will enable HSBC to engage with sports, e-sports and gaming fans via its slice of turf in The Sandbox, a virtual space majority-owned by Hong Kong-based Animoca Brands. Its venture into the virtual world comes as the British-based lender slashes its footprint in the real world, announcing on Tuesday it would cut a further 69 branches in Britain as its customers move online.
United Kingdom

UK Government To Speed Up Criminal Sanctions for Tech Bosses With New Online Safety Laws (cnbc.com) 22

Executives at companies like Meta, Google, Twitter and TikTok could face jail time sooner than anticipated if they fail to cooperate with the U.K. internet regulator, Ofcom. From a report: The U.K. government announced Wednesday that executives may face prosecution or jail time within two months of the new Online Safety Bill becoming law, instead of two years as it was previously drafted. The Online Safety Bill will be presented to lawmakers in Parliament on Thursday and could become law later this year. It aims to make it mandatory for social media services, search engines and other platforms that allow people to share their own content to protect children, tackle illegal activity and uphold their stated terms and conditions. The government said Wednesday that a range of new offenses had been added to the bill that makes the senior managers at tech firms criminally liable for destroying evidence, failing to attend or providing false information in interviews with Ofcom, and for obstructing the watchdog when it enters company offices.
United Kingdom

UK Looking To Extend Life of Nuclear Plant By 20 Years Amid Energy Crisis (ft.com) 122

The UK is looking at a 20-year extension of the Sizewell B nuclear power plant on England's east coast to 2055 as Boris Johnson aims to bolster domestic energy supplies following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. From a report: The extension is one of several options under consideration as the prime minister draws up a new "energy supply strategy," which will be published next week against the backdrop of highly volatile international gas prices and an escalating cost-of-living crisis. Johnson's new approach will not see him cut Britain's carbon targets, including the plan to reach net zero by 2050, and will see an increase in targets for various renewable energy sources, according to officials. However, it will also seek to improve security of supply of hydrocarbons by increasing North Sea oil and gas production and potentially keeping some of Britain's few remaining coal-fired power plants open slightly longer than expected -- rather than relying on imports.
Businesses

ARM To Drop Up To 15% of Staff (theregister.com) 49

Chip designer and licensor to the stars, Arm, has reportedly dropped around 1,000 workers onto unemployment queues. The Register reports: An email to staff from Arm CEO Rene Haas, seen and reported by the UK's Daily Telegraph, states: "To stay competitive, we need to remove duplication of work now that we are one Arm; stop work that is no longer critical to our future success; and think about how we get work done." Haas, who has been in the chief exec's chair for about a month, added Arm needs "to be more disciplined about our costs and where we're investing." "I write this knowing that although it is the right thing to do for Arm's future, this is not going to be easy," he added. Between 12 and 15 per cent of staff will be let go as a result globally. The biz employs 6,400 worldwide. The job cuts come just a month after the collapse of the company's $40 billion sale to Nvidia. ARM is now pursuing a potential IPO, according to Bloomberg.
News

WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Denied Permission To Appeal Extradition (cnet.com) 102

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's attempt to appeal extradition was denied by the UK's Supreme Court on Monday. Assange was initially granted the right to petition the court in late January. From a report: The UK's highest court denied Assange's bid because "the application does not raise an arguable point of law," according to a statement released by the court. Assange faces espionage charges relating to WikiLeaks' release of confidential US military records about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange could potentially face a 175-year jail sentence, though US officials said, if he's convicted, his sentence would likely be between four and six years.

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