Police have warned students in the UK against using the Sci-Hub website, which they say lets users "illegally access" millions of scientific research papers. Specifically, the police say the website could "pose a threat to their personal information and data." The BBC reports: The police are concerned that users of the "Russia-based website" could have information taken and misused online. The Sci-Hub says its website "removes all barriers" to science. It offers open access to more than 85 million scientific papers and claims that copyright laws should be abolished and that such material should be "knowledge to all." It describes itself as "the first pirate website in the world to provide mass and public access to tens of millions of research papers." But Max Bruce, the City of London Police's cyber protection officer, has urged universities to block the website on their network because of the "threat posed by Sci-Hub to both the university and its students." "If you're tricked into revealing your log-in credentials, whether it's through the use of fake emails or malware, we know that Sci-Hub will then use those details to compromise your university's computer network in order to steal research papers," he said. "Students should be aware that accessing such websites is illegal, as it hosts stolen intellectual property," said Det Insp Kevin Ives. He warned that visitors to the website, whose Twitter account has been suspended, are "very vulnerable to having their credentials stolen."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AT&T lied about California's net neutrality law yesterday when it claimed the law requires AT&T to stop providing "free data" to mobile customers. In reality, the California law allows AT&T to continue zero-rating HBO Max, its own video service, as long as it exempts all competing video services from data caps without charging the other video providers. But instead of zero-rating all video without collecting payments from its competitors in the online-video business, AT&T decided it would rather not exempt anything at all. "Unfortunately, under the California law we are now prohibited from providing certain data features to consumers free of charge," AT&T claimed in its announcement that it is ending the "zero-rating" program that exempts some content from data caps. "Given that the Internet does not recognize state borders, the new law not only ends our ability to offer California customers such free data services but also similarly impacts our customers in states beyond California," the AT&T announcement also said. Going forward, AT&T will no longer exempt the AT&T-owned HBO Max from its mobile data caps and will stop the "sponsored data" program in which it charges other companies for similar exemptions from AT&T's data caps. But this is a business decision, not purely a legal one: as we already stated, AT&T could exempt all video streaming services including HBO Max from its mobile data caps without violating the California law as long as AT&T stops charging rival video companies for the same data-cap exemptions.

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Executives at Instagram are planning to build a version of the popular photo-sharing app that can be used by children under the age of 13, BuzzFeed News reported this week, citing an internal company post. From the report: "I'm excited to announce that going forward, we have identified youth work as a priority for Instagram and have added it to our H1 priority list," Vishal Shah, Instagram's vice president of product, wrote on an employee message board on Thursday. "We will be building a new youth pillar within the Community Product Group to focus on two things: (a) accelerating our integrity and privacy work to ensure the safest possible experience for teens and (b) building a version of Instagram that allows people under the age of 13 to safely use Instagram for the first time."

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An otherwise meaningless game during Monday's preliminary stage of the $200,000 Magnus Carlsen Invitational left a pair of grandmasters in stitches while thrusting one of chess's most bizarre and least effective openings into the mainstream. From a report: Norway's Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura of the United States had already qualified for the knockout stage of the competition with one game left to play between them. Carlsen, the world's top-ranked player and reigning world champion, started the dead rubber typically enough by moving his king's pawn with the common 1 e4. Nakamura, the five-time US champion and current world No 18, mirrored it with 1 ... e5. And then all hell broke loose. Carlsen inched his king one space forward to the rank where his pawn had started. The self-destructive opening (2 Ke2) is known as the bongcloud for a simple reason: you'd have to be stoned to the gills to think it was a good idea. The wink-wink move immediately sent Nakamura, who's been a visible champion of the bongcloud in recent years, into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Naturally, the American played along with 2 ... Ke7, which marked the first double bongcloud ever played in a major tournament and its official entry to chess theory (namely, the Bongcloud Counter-Gambit: Hotbox Variation). "Don't do this!" cried the Hungarian grandmaster Peter Leko from the commentary booth, looking on in disbelief as the friendly rivals quickly settled for a draw by repetition after six moves. "Is this, uh, called bongcloud? Yeah? It was something like of a bongcloud business. This Ke2-Ke7 stuff. Please definitely don't try it at home. Guys, just forget about it." Why is the bongcloud so bad? For one, it manages to break practically all of the principles you're taught about chess openings from day one: it doesn't fight for the center, it leaves the king exposed and it wastes time, all while eliminating the possibility of castling and managing to impede the development of the bishop and queen. Even the worst openings tend to have some redeeming quality. The bongcloud, not so much. What makes it funny (well, not to everyone) is the idea that two of the best players on the planet would use an opening so pure in its defiance of conventional wisdom.

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Demo for Roam folks, showing how LO2 works and ideas for how to connect up editing tools (like LO2) and databases, which is part of what Roam is. If you have comments this is a good place for now.

The highly contagious variant first identified in the U.K. likely accounts for up to 30% of Covid-19 infections in the United States, White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday. From a report: The variant, called B.1.1.7, has also been reported in at least 94 countries and detected in 50 jurisdictions in the U.S., Fauci said during a White House news briefing on the pandemic, adding that the numbers are likely growing. The U.K. first identified the B.1.1.7 strain, which appears to spread more easily and quickly than other variants, last fall. It has since spread across the world, including the U.S., Fauci said. U.S. researchers have identified 5,567 cases through genetic sequencing as of Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. U.S. health officials say the variant could become the dominant strain in the U.S. by the end of this month or in early April. New variants are especially a concern for public health officials as they could become more resistant to antibody treatments and vaccines. Top health officials, including Fauci, have urged Americans to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, saying the virus can't mutate if it can't infect hosts and replicate.

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Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger are down for many right now. From a report: More than 123,000 users have reported issues with Instagram on DownDetector. More than 23,000 users have reported issues with WhatsApp on DownDetector, too, and the service is down for one Verge staffer's family, who is based in Europe. Facebook Messenger seems to be affected as well, with more than 5,000 reports of problems on DownDetector. When navigating to Instagram's website, I saw a white page with the message "5xx Server Error." And when I redownloaded Instagram to my phone and tried to log in, I hit an error there, too.

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The NFL wrapped up its broadcast contract negotiations for the next eleven years, and a big winner was Amazon, which scored exclusive national rights to Thursday Night Football (TNF). From a report: Going forward, the NFL's weekly Thursday games will be exclusive to Amazon Prime Video, a big change for a package that was previously on terrestrial television or cable. The deal runs from 2023 to 2033 and, according to a report from CNBC, will see Amazon pay $1 billion per year for the TNF package. Thursday Night Football is the NFL's newest and cheapest TV package, but the deal lets Amazon creep closer to parity with the NFL's other licensees, mainstream TV networks like Fox Sports, ABC/ESPN (Disney), CBS (Viacom), and NBC (Comcast). CNBC's report has the other four channels paying upward of $2 billion per year each, and unlike Amazon, the TV networks get to take turns airing the Super Bowl. The NFL's new deal contains streaming provisions for the other providers, too. Each network can now simulcast their games on their streaming service, and some deals scored one or two streaming-exclusive games.

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Twitter said on this week it will seek public input on when and how it should ban world leaders, saying it was reviewing policy and considering whether the leaders should be held to the same rules as other users. From a report: Social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook have been under scrutiny for the way they handle accounts of politicians and government officials, particularly following their ban on former U.S. President Donald Trump's account for inciting violence after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Twitter said it would release a survey on March 19 to find out whether users think politicians should be subject to the usual Twitter rules and what enforcement action should be taken if they break them. The survey will close on April 12 at 5 p.m PT.

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Two podcasts, one good the other one awful.

The good one was on Fresh Air, featuring a long interview with New Yorker reporter, Jane Mayer, about whether or not former president Trump could be tried and convicted of a criminal offense.

The awful one was an Ezra Klein interview with Rebecca Traister, a reporter for New York magazine about Andrew Cuomo. It was about how offensive and sexist governor Cuomo is, but the ironic thing, that I can't believe Klein couldn't hear, is how incredibly offensive she was being, in a sexist and racist way.

The first thing that hit me the wrong way is she described a conflict between Cuomo and NYC mayor Bill Di Blasio as a "dick swinging contest." That quote (about 9 minutes into the interview) is as bad as anything Cuomo is accused of saying, and she did it publicly, with a member of the press listening, and he didn't say a word, didn't question it. Try to imagine something like that being said about two women, you know, using the female equivalent of "dicks."

She admits she was furious that her "liberal peers" were liking Cuomo's leadership, but that is not grounds for removal, and you have to wonder, could New York Magazine, and Klein, have found a more dispassionate person to tell this story, someone like Jane Mayer, for example.

Later in the interview she admits her issue is with "white, male politicians." I turned the interview off at that point. That kind of hate is very familiar to me, and these are her personal beliefs and that she has credibility here re Cuomo is an indictment of her liberal peers, not just her.

Traister, who I have seen before on this topic, and was just as appalled at her ambition and rage, should run against Cuomo next year, and her writing should be clearly labeled as partisan, but come on, we have to do better, and Klein, you can't support this kind of racism and sexism without at least questioning it.

As WhatsApp spends months to address users' concerns and confusion about its planned policy update, there is evidently one entity it hasn't had much luck making inroads with: The Government of India. From a report: The Indian government alleged on Friday that WhatsApp's planned privacy update, which goes into effect in two months, violates local laws on several counts. In a filing to the Delhi High Court, the federal government also asked the court to prevent Facebook-owned messaging app from rolling out the update in India, WhatsApp's biggest market by users.

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Microsoft unveiled new technology to boost government and health care organizations' vaccine management systems, including scheduling shot appointments and monitoring results, to fix shortcomings weeks after the company's initial custom-built programs ran aground in a few states. From a report: The Microsoft Vaccine Management product released Friday is made up of features and new apps that the software company said will improve upon and fix the glitches that occurred when its previous effort, the Vaccination Registration and Application System, failed to work properly in New Jersey and Washington D.C. The new software "incorporates lessons learned from VRAS regarding scalable architecture, improved user experiences for residents and health care workers," the company said in an email. It also uses health care standards for information transfer so data can be exported more quickly to other record systems, such as electronic medical records. The software also addresses other issues that hampered the previous option, including requiring users to pre-register before seeking a Covid-19 vaccine appointment and providing a way to proactively handle spikes in demand.

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The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating whether Visa is engaging in anticompetitive practices in the debit-card market, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. From a report: The department's antitrust division has been probing if Visa limited merchants' ability to route debit-card transactions over card networks that are often less expensive, the WSJ reported. Many of the department's questions are focused on online debit-card transactions, but investigators are looking into in-store issues as well, according to the report. Earlier this year, Visa and fintech startup Plaid called off their $5.3 billion merger following a lawsuit from the Justice Department aimed at blocking the deal on antitrust grounds.

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After a year in which most people were stuck indoors, it should come as little surprise that streaming platforms skyrocketed in popularity over the past 12 months. For the first time ever, subscriptions to streaming services surpassed one billion, reaching 1.1 billion globally. From a report: At the same time, box office receipts plummeted because movie theaters across the world were closed for a significant part of 2020. Global ticket sales tapped out at $12 billion, with North America accounting for $2.2 billion of that haul. Though the circumstances aren't comparable, worldwide box office receipts totaled $42.5 billion in 2019, with $11.4 billion coming from domestic theaters. Still, it marks a 72% year-over-year decline. These statistics come from the Motion Pictures Association's annual theme report, which is conducted by the entertainment industry trade group and intends to analyze how film, television and streaming content performs yearly. The 2020 study covers a year that was overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic, making some of the data understandably skewed and difficult to compare box office totals between countries. In Asian countries, particularly in China, the box office has already returned to pre-pandemic levels. That hasn't been the case in the U.S. and Canada, where new movies are few and far between and audiences are returning to theaters at a glacial pace. Outside of North America, the top three box office markets were China ($3 billion), Japan ($1.3 billion), and France ($500 million). Combined, the global theatrical business and home and mobile entertainment market totaled $80.8 billion in revenues in 2020, shrinking by 18% from the $98.3 billion amassed last year. The success of digital home entertainment, which grew 23% to $68.8 billion, helped offset the depleted theatrical box office numbers. In the U.S., subscriptions reached 308.6 million, representing a 32% increase from 2019.

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Tech companies led by Mozilla are urging the Federal Communications Commission to swiftly reinstate net neutrality rules stripped away under the Trump administration. From a report: In a letter to FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Friday, ADT, Dropbox, Eventbrite, Reddit, Vimeo and Wikimedia joined Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox web browser, in calling net neutrality "critical for preserving the internet as a free and open medium that promotes innovation and spurs economic growth." [...] In a blog post Friday, Mozilla Chief Legal Officer Amy Keating said the pandemic has made the need for net neutrality rules even more clear. "In a moment where classrooms and offices have moved online by necessity, it is critically important to have rules paired with strong government oversight and enforcement to protect families and businesses from predatory practices," Keating said. "In California, residents will have the benefit of these fundamental safeguards as a result of a recent court decision that will allow the state to enforce its state net neutrality law. However, we believe that users nationwide deserve the same ability to control their own online experiences."

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