"A mobile security expert has accused China of exploiting cellphone networks in the Caribbean to conduct 'mass surveillance' on Americans," reports Newsweek: Gary Miller, a former vice president of network security at California-based analytics company Mobileum, told The Guardian he had amassed evidence of espionage conducted via "decades-old vulnerabilities" in the global telecommunications system. While not explicitly mentioned in the report, the claims appear to be centered around Signaling System 7 (SS7), a communications protocol that routes calls and data around the world and has long been known to have inherent security weaknesses. According to Miller, his analysis of "signals data" from the Caribbean has shown China was using a state-controlled mobile operator to "target, track, and intercept phone communications of U.S. phone subscribers," The Guardian reported. Miller claimed China appeared to exploit Caribbean operators to conduct surveillance on Americans as they were traveling, alleging that attacks on cell phones between 2018 to 2020 likely affected "tens of thousands" of U.S. mobile users in the region. "Once you get into the tens of thousands, the attacks qualify as mass surveillance," the mobile researcher said, noting the tactic is "primarily for intelligence collection and not necessarily targeting high-profile targets." Interesting quote from the Guardian's original story: "We have an illusion of security when we talk on our mobile phones," said James Lewis, the director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). "People don't realise that we are under a sustained espionage attack on anything that connects to a network, and that this is just another example of a really aggressive and pretty sophisticated campaign." Thanks to chill (Slashdot reader #34,294) for the story!

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Software developer/sys-admin Hawke Robinson is the CEO of RPG Research, a 501(c)3 non-profit, volunteer-run, charitable organization founded in 1977. He's also long-time Slashdot reader kmleon, and shares this story from the gaming-news site The Gamer: RPG Research recently sent out an urgent call requesting more volunteers, more warehouse space, and more donations to help meet the overwhelming demand it is currently facing. In a truly good news/bad news situation, the organization has seen donations increase by 600% from previous years, while 2020 has increased demand for the organization's programs by more than 1,000%. The increased demand is simply more than RPG Research is currently staffed and equipped to handle, resulting in the call for aid. Along with the need for more volunteers, RPGR is also seeking a sizeable warehouse to house office space, events, the RPG Museum, as well as to hold the RPG bus and trailers. The ideal warehouse being sought is "a 2,000 (minimum) to 4,000+ square foot warehouse" somewhere "in the greater Spokane Washington or Post Falls Idaho region...." The international (six continents) organization began studying roleplaying games and their effects in 1983, and since then have presented their findings through various programs in educational settings, prison systems, and therapeutic medical settings.

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The MacRumors site writes: Facebook's recent criticism directed at Apple over an upcoming tracking-related privacy measure is "laughable," according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit organization that defends civil liberties in the digital world. Facebook has claimed that Apple's new opt-in tracking policy will hurt small businesses who benefit from personalized advertising, but the EFF believes that Facebook's campaign against Apple is really about "what Facebook stands to lose if its users learn more about exactly what it and other data brokers are up to behind the scenes," noting that Facebook has "built a massive empire around the concept of tracking everything you do...." According to the EFF, a number of studies have shown that most of the money made from targeted advertising does not reach app developers, and instead goes to third-party data brokers like Facebook, Google, and lesser-known firms. "Facebook touts itself in this case as protecting small businesses, and that couldn't be further from the truth," the EFF said. "Facebook has locked them into a situation in which they are forced to be sneaky and adverse to their own customers. The answer cannot be to defend that broken system at the cost of their own users' privacy and control." "This is really about who benefits from the normalization of surveillance-powered advertising..." argues the EFF. And they ultimately come down in support of Apple's new privacy changes. "Here, Apple is right and Facebook is wrong."

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"New COVID-19 restrictions and worsening outbreaks have compelled Apple to temporarily close nearly one fifth of its retail stores during one of the busiest shopping weeks of the holiday season," reports 9to5Mac. 401 of Apple's 509 locations worldwide remain open as of publication. Most open locations in the US are limited to Express storefront pickup of online orders and Genius Support. Walk-in shopping and customers without an appointment are not accepted at Express locations. The site also notes that Apple recently re-closed all 18 of its stores across Germany and the Netherlands. And the Verge confirms more store closings in the U.S. and around the world: Every California store, all four in Tennessee, all three in Utah, all four in Minnesota, two in Oklahoma, and the stores in Portland, Oregon; Anchorage, Alaska; Omaha, Nebraska; and Albuquerque, New Mexico are all closed this upcoming week — as well as the 16 additional stores in the U.K., Mexico and Brazil starting tomorrow, December 20th. It's not hard to guess why the stores are reclosing, particularly in California where COVID-19 saw its four deadliest days yet in a row last week as part of an ongoing surge, and in London where Prime Minister Boris Johnson has just put the city in emergency lockdown starting midnight.

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Mike Masnick wrote a similar thread on this episode of OTM.

Mike Masnick wrote a similar thread on this episode of OTM.

You have very little power over what comes next.

You have very little power over what comes next.

An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. military's Space Force branch celebrated its one-year anniversary Friday by announcing that its members would now be known as "guardians". But the name was not universally greeted with respect and appreciation. Gizmodo announced the news with a headline which read "Space Force Personnel Will Be Called 'Guardians' Because Sure, Whatever," in an article which jokingly asks how this will affect the other ranks of this branch of the military. "Does someone get promoted from Guardian to Sentinel to Space Paladin to Tython, The Secessionist King Of Mars or something?" (Their article also suggests other names the U.S. military could have considered — like "moon buddies" or "rocketeers" — even at one point proposing "starship troopers".) Forbes wrote that "The mockery arrived instantly and in great rivers..." But there was an interesting observation from a British newspaper (which is in fact, named The Guardian). "As the Associated Press put it, delicately: 'President-elect Joe Biden has yet to reveal his plans for the space force in the next administration.'" In fact, New York magazine called the new name for members of Space Force the "strongest case yet for its demise," in an article headlined "Abolish the Space Force." ("Maybe 'stormtrooper' was too obvious...") In an apparent bid to be taken more seriously, on Friday the Space Force also shared an official anniversary greeting they'd received from Lee Majors, the actor who'd played a cybernetically-enhanced Air Force colonel in the 1970s action series The Six Million Dollar Man (who, in later seasons, befriended Bigfoot and the alien community who'd brought him to earth). But Mashable added sympathetically that "It's been a long year, though. If people want to draw some nerdy joy from a U.S. military branch inadvertently referencing comic books and video games, let them have their fun."

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Reuters reports: A second hacking group, different from the suspected Russian team now associated with the major SolarWinds data breach, also targeted the company's products earlier this year, according to a security research blog by Microsoft. "The investigation of the whole SolarWinds compromise led to the discovery of an additional malware that also affects the SolarWinds Orion product but has been determined to be likely unrelated to this compromise and used by a different threat actor," the blog said... It is unclear whether SUPERNOVA has been deployed against any targets, such as customers of SolarWinds. The malware appears to have been created in late March, based on a review of the file's compile times. Microsoft's detailed blog post notes that the code "provides an attacker the ability to send and execute any arbitrary C# program on the victim's device."

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I finished watching Better Things a couple of days ago, still thinking, good sign. I like that, even though it is very much women’s POV, and they can be pretty harsh on men, the men sometimes have depth that women miss. I stuck with it through four seasons.

The NBA season starts on Tuesday, and I, for one, am looking forward to it. I hear the Knicks will be interesting this year. Heh. Yeah. Okay, anyway. I just read about how James Harden wants to be traded out of Houston. SBNation has a rundown of some of the possible deals.

Meanwhile Facebook and Google are screwing us. If the people at NPR understand how, why aren't they reporting that. Both are choking the open protocols of the web, and keep competition from rising up to exploit their weakness. This is something that probably sounds "technical" to them. Most journalists are intimidated, for now at least, by the technology of the internet. To our detriment. Maybe over the years that will ease as the old folk move on and young people who grew up with the tech replace them. But I'm not really that hopeful about that. The young folk seem to have inherited the blindness and hypocrisy of previous generations of journalism.

Meanwhile Facebook and Google are screwing us. If the people at NPR understand how, why aren't they reporting that. Both are choking the open protocols of the web, and keep competition from rising up to exploit their weakness. This is something that probably sounds "technical" to them. Most journalists are intimidated, for now at least, by the technology of the internet. To our detriment. Maybe over the years that will ease as the old folk move on and young people who grew up with the tech replace them. But I'm not really that hopeful about that. The young folk seem to have inherited the blindness and hypocrisy of previous generations of journalism.