An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Department of Defense has weighed in against a proposal before the Federal Communications Commission to open the 1 to 2 Gigahertz frequency range -- the L band -- for use in 5G cellular networks. The reason: segments of that range of radio spectrum are already used by Global Positioning System signals and other military systems. In a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper pressed for the rejection of the proposal by Ligado Networks (formerly known as Lightspeed), saying, "There are too many unknowns and the risks are far too great to federal operations to allow Ligado's proposed system to proceed... This could have a significant negative impact on military operations, both in peacetime and war." The FCC has already largely brushed aside similar opposition from NASA, the US Navy, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, among others, over another spectrum block in the 24GHz range -- which is used by weather satellites for remote monitoring of water vapor. But comments are still being collected on the Ligado plan for sharing the 1675 to 1680MHz block of the L Band. Pai has been supportive of the plan because that range is adjacent to the existing 1670 to 1675MHz block already in use for wireless services. GPS signals use several blocks of the L band, including a primary channel centered on 1575.42MHz. GPS uses L band signals because of their ability to penetrate cloud cover, rain, and vegetation. The L band is also used by the DOD for a number of other purposes, including tactical air navigation, landing assistance telemetry, Identify Friend or Foe (IFF) signals, and missile range and aircraft telemetry -- though the DOD has already had to move some of these applications further up the spectrum range to make room for previous "commercial reallocation."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Department of Defense has weighed in against a proposal before the Federal Communications Commission to open the 1 to 2 Gigahertz frequency range -- the L band -- for use in 5G cellular networks. The reason: segments of that range of radio spectrum are already used by Global Positioning System signals and other military systems. In a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper pressed for the rejection of the proposal by Ligado Networks (formerly known as Lightspeed), saying, "There are too many unknowns and the risks are far too great to federal operations to allow Ligado's proposed system to proceed... This could have a significant negative impact on military operations, both in peacetime and war." The FCC has already largely brushed aside similar opposition from NASA, the US Navy, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, among others, over another spectrum block in the 24GHz range -- which is used by weather satellites for remote monitoring of water vapor. But comments are still being collected on the Ligado plan for sharing the 1675 to 1680MHz block of the L Band. Pai has been supportive of the plan because that range is adjacent to the existing 1670 to 1675MHz block already in use for wireless services. GPS signals use several blocks of the L band, including a primary channel centered on 1575.42MHz. GPS uses L band signals because of their ability to penetrate cloud cover, rain, and vegetation. The L band is also used by the DOD for a number of other purposes, including tactical air navigation, landing assistance telemetry, Identify Friend or Foe (IFF) signals, and missile range and aircraft telemetry -- though the DOD has already had to move some of these applications further up the spectrum range to make room for previous "commercial reallocation."

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For an actor who made a career by playing silly characters, actor Sacha Baron Cohen gave yesterday one of the most eloquent and convincing speeches in a long time in support of cracking down on large social media networks to prevent the spread of lies and hate speech that these platforms allow. From a report: While accepting his award, Cohen touched on the role companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter have played in spreading lies and hate speech online, calling the sites "the greatest propaganda machine in history." Below is a short summary of his main talking points. Cohen called Facebook, YouTube and Google, Twitter and others -- the biggest propaganda machine in history. He coined the term "Silicon Six" to describe the six US billionaires that control this machine -- naming Zuckerberg at Facebook, Sundar Pichai at Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Alphabet, Susan Wojcicki at YouTube, and Jack Dorsey at Twitter. The actor ripped Zuckerberg for defending holocaust deniers. He ripped Zuckerberg for his platform facilitating Russia's interference in US elections. He ripped Zuckerberg for facilitating the Myanmar genocide. Said if another genocide takes place, Zuckerberg needs to go to jail. Cohen ripped Facebook for allowing political ads. Said if Facebook existed in the 1930s they would have allowed Hitler to post "post 30-second ads on his 'solution' to the 'Jewish problem'." Cohen likened the Christchurch massacre video to "a snuff film broadcast by social media." He said social media sites are today's largest publishers, and should have to abide to the same standards that newspapers, radio, and TV stations abide. He agreed that social media should function based on government-mandated rules, and not by internal policies set by billionaires more focused on protecting share prices than human life. He called "for regulation and legislation to curb the greed of these high-tech robber barons."

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For an actor who made a career by playing silly characters, actor Sacha Baron Cohen gave yesterday one of the most eloquent and convincing speeches in a long time in support of cracking down on large social media networks to prevent the spread of lies and hate speech that these platforms allow. From a report: While accepting his award, Cohen touched on the role companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter have played in spreading lies and hate speech online, calling the sites "the greatest propaganda machine in history." Below is a short summary of his main talking points. Cohen called Facebook, YouTube and Google, Twitter and others -- the biggest propaganda machine in history. He coined the term "Silicon Six" to describe the six US billionaires that control this machine -- naming Zuckerberg at Facebook, Sundar Pichai at Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Alphabet, Susan Wojcicki at YouTube, and Jack Dorsey at Twitter. The actor ripped Zuckerberg for defending holocaust deniers. He ripped Zuckerberg for his platform facilitating Russia's interference in US elections. He ripped Zuckerberg for facilitating the Myanmar genocide. Said if another genocide takes place, Zuckerberg needs to go to jail. Cohen ripped Facebook for allowing political ads. Said if Facebook existed in the 1930s they would have allowed Hitler to post "post 30-second ads on his 'solution' to the 'Jewish problem'." Cohen likened the Christchurch massacre video to "a snuff film broadcast by social media." He said social media sites are today's largest publishers, and should have to abide to the same standards that newspapers, radio, and TV stations abide. He agreed that social media should function based on government-mandated rules, and not by internal policies set by billionaires more focused on protecting share prices than human life. He called "for regulation and legislation to curb the greed of these high-tech robber barons."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Two Western hostages were released after three Taliban prisoners landed in Qatar as part of a prisoner swap deal.

Protesters say the government has broken its promise of democratic reform.

JustAnotherOldGuy writes: For well over a decade, identity thieves, phishers, and other online scammers have created a black market of stolen and aggregated consumer data that they used to break into people's accounts, steal their money, or impersonate them. In October, dark web researcher Vinny Troia found one such trove sitting exposed and easily accessible on an unsecured server, comprising 4 terabytes of personal information -- about 1.2 billion records in all. While the collection is impressive for its sheer volume, the data doesn't include sensitive information like passwords, credit card numbers, or Social Security numbers. It does, though, contain profiles of hundreds of millions of people that include home and cell phone numbers, associated social media profiles like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Github, work histories seemingly scraped from LinkedIn, almost 50 million unique phone numbers, and 622 million unique email addresses. "It's bad that someone had this whole thing wide open," Troia says. "This is the first time I've seen all these social media profiles collected and merged with user profile information into a single database on this scale. From the perspective of an attacker, if the goal is to impersonate people or hijack their accounts, you have names, phone numbers, and associated account URLs. That's a lot of information in one place to get you started."

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Facebook once built an internal app that let employees identify people using facial recognition and their phone cameras, Business Insider reported Friday. From the report: The app, which was developed between 2015 and 2016, utilised Facebook's vast collection of user identities to automatically recognise the person at whom the phone's camera was pointed. The app was not released publicly, and Facebook tells Business Insider that it only worked on company employees and any of their friends who opted in to the social network's facial recognition system. "As a way to learn about new technologies, our teams regularly build apps to use internally. The apps described here were only available to Facebook employees, and could only recognize employees and their friends who had face recognition enabled," said a Facebook spokesperson. The existence of the app illustrates how Facebook has been quick to experiment with technology that could have significant societal implications.

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The US Federal Communications Commission on Friday voted to bar use of its $8.5 billion a year Universal Service Fund to purchase equipment and services from Huawei and ZTE. The government fund is used by multiple programs to subsidize US broadband deployment and services. From a report: In a unanimous vote during its November open meeting, the FCC approved an order that blocks the use of USF funds to purchase equipment and services from companies that pose a national security threat. The order also establishes a process for barring more companies in the future. So far, just Huawei and ZTE are on the list. "Given the threats posed by Huawei and ZTE to America's security and our 5G future, this FCC will not sit idly by and hope for the best," said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in a statement Friday.

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Three American Muslim men said they were placed on the government's 'no-fly list' for refusing to become informants.

The collection of gold and silver jewelry and up to 300 coins was dug up in 2015 on farmland in central England.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in a car bombing after exposing corruption through the Panama Papers.

William Barr says he was initially suspicious of the death, but now does not believe there was foul play.

In the search for life in our solar system, Mars tends to steal the spotlight. But in recent years Jupiter's fourth largest moon, Europa, has emerged as a promising extraterrestrial nursery. Planetary scientists have long suspected Europa may harbor a vast liquid water ocean beneath its thick, icy crust. If Europa's ocean also has a source of energy -- think hydrothermal vents -- and a few choice chemical elements, there's a decent chance it could support basic lifeforms. From a report: This theory makes a lot of assumptions, but on Monday it received one of its biggest boosts yet. An international team of astronomers announced they directly detected water vapor in Europa's atmosphere for the first time. As detailed in a paper published in Nature Astronomy, this method of detection is strong evidence that liquid water exists beneath the surface of Europa. "This doesn't necessarily mean the water vapor is coming from an ocean," says NASA planetary scientist Lucas Paganini. "But it does seem like this detection is connected to liquid water under the surface." A lot of what we know about Europa was gleaned from data collected by the Galileo spacecraft on its tour of Jupiter in the late '90s. One of the most remarkable findings from that mission was that something was messing with Jupiter's magnetic field. Based on this finding, planetary scientists hypothesized Europa might be home to an electrically conductive fluid, like salt water, that was causing the magnetic disturbances.

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Built a century ago, Palais de Lome was home to both French and German rulers, and later residence of Togo's president.