Enlarge / ATM at a Patelco Credit Union branch in Dublin, California, on July 23, 2018. (credit: Getty Images | Smith Collection/Gado )

A California-based credit union with over 450,000 members said it suffered a ransomware attack that is disrupting account services and could take weeks to recover from.

"The next few days—and coming weeks—may present challenges for our members, as we continue to navigate around the limited functionality we are experiencing due to this incident," Patelco Credit Union CEO Erin Mendez told members in a July 1 message that said the security problem was caused by a ransomware attack. Online banking and several other services are unavailable, while several other services and types of transactions have limited functionality.

Patelco Credit Union was hit by the attack on June 29 and has been posting updates on this page, which says the credit union "proactively shut down some of our day-to-day banking systems to contain and remediate the issue... As a result of our proactive measures, transactions, transfers, payments, and deposits are unavailable at this time. Debit and credit cards are working with limited functionality."

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The US Supreme Court today agreed to hear a challenge to the Texas law that requires age verification on porn sites. A list of orders released this morning shows that the court granted a petition for certiorari filed by the Free Speech Coalition, an adult-industry lobby group.

In March, the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that Texas could continue enforcing the law while litigation continues. In a 2-1 decision, 5th Circuit judges wrote that "the age-verification requirement is rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in preventing minors' access to pornography. Therefore, the age-verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment."

The dissenting judge faulted the 5th Circuit majority for reviewing the law under the "rational-basis" standard instead of the more stringent strict scrutiny. The Supreme Court "has unswervingly applied strict scrutiny to content-based regulations that limit adults' access to protected speech," Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote at the time.

Enlarge / The Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, DC, in May 2023. (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto)

The US Supreme Court has avoided making a final decision on challenges to the Texas and Florida social media laws, but the majority opinion written by Justice Elena Kagan criticized the Texas law and made it clear that content moderation is protected by the First Amendment.

The Texas law "is unlikely to withstand First Amendment scrutiny," the Supreme Court majority wrote. "Texas has thus far justified the law as necessary to balance the mix of speech on Facebook's News Feed and similar platforms; and the record reflects that Texas officials passed it because they thought those feeds skewed against politically conservative voices. But this Court has many times held, in many contexts, that it is no job for government to decide what counts as the right balance of private expression—to 'un-bias' what it thinks biased, rather than to leave such judgments to speakers and their audiences. That principle works for social-media platforms as it does for others."

A Big Tech lobby group that challenged the state laws said it was pleased by the ruling. "In a complex series of opinions that were unanimous in the outcome, but divided 6-3 in their reasoning, the Court sent the cases back to lower courts, making clear that a State may not interfere with private actors' speech," the Computer & Communications Industry Association said.

Enlarge / Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor arrive for President Joe Biden's State of the Union address on March 7, 2024, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Win McNamee )

The US Supreme Court today overturned the 40-year-old Chevron precedent in a ruling that limits the regulatory authority of federal agencies. The 6-3 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo will make it harder for agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission and Environmental Protection Agency to issue regulations without explicit authorization from Congress.

Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the opinion of the court and was joined by Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Elena Kagan filed a dissenting opinion that was joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Chevron gave agencies leeway to interpret ambiguous laws as long as the agency's conclusion was reasonable. But the Roberts court said that a "statutory ambiguity does not necessarily reflect a congressional intent that an agency, as opposed to a court, resolve the resulting interpretive question."

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In 2017, Kathleen Odean thought she had found the last cell phone plan she would ever need. T-Mobile was offering a mobile service for people age 55 and over, with an "Un-contract" guarantee that it would never raise prices.

"I thought, wow, I can live out my days with this fixed plan," Odean, a Rhode Island resident who is now 70 years old, told Ars last week. Odean and her husband switched from Verizon to get the T-Mobile deal, which cost $60 a month for two lines.

Despite its Un-contract promise, T-Mobile in May 2024 announced a price hike for customers like Odean who thought they had a lifetime price guarantee on plans such as T-Mobile One, Magenta, and Simple Choice. The $5-per-line price hike will raise her and her husband's monthly bill from $60 to $70, Odean said.

Enlarge / A Tesla Cybertruck at the Viva Technology show at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles on May 24, 2024 in Paris, France. (credit: Getty Images | Chesnot )

Tesla has announced two more recalls of the Cybertruck, both of which affect over 11,000 vehicles produced since the car first became available late last year. Cybertruck owners will need to bring their cars in for service because of faulty windshield wiper motors and a cosmetic piece that could come off the vehicle while it's being driven.

Tesla previously recalled the Cybertruck in April over a faulty accelerator pedal assembly and in January for a software problem in which the font size of brake, park, and antilock brake system visual warning indicators were too small. The January recall also affected Tesla Model 3, S, X, and Y.

A new recall notice says, "the front windshield wiper motor controller may stop functioning due to electrical overstress to the gate driver component. A non-functioning windshield wiper may reduce visibility in certain operating conditions, which may increase the risk of a collision."

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Verizon Wireless agreed to pay a $1,050,000 penalty to the US Treasury and implement a compliance plan because of a 911 outage in December 2022 that was caused by a botched update, the Federal Communications Commission announced today.

A consent decree explains that the outage was caused by "the reapplication of a known flawed security policy update file." During the outage, lasting one hour and 44 minutes, Verizon failed to deliver hundreds of 911 calls in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, the FCC said.

"The [FCC] Enforcement Bureau takes any potential violations of the Commission's 911 rules extremely seriously. Sunny day outages, as occurred here, can be especially troubling because they occur when the public and 911 call centers least expect it," Bureau Chief Loyaan Egal said.

Enlarge / Julian Assange in an airplane in a photo posted by WikiLeaks on June 25, 2024. (credit: WikiLeaks)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal charge, ending a long extradition battle with the United States government. Assange will reportedly avoid further jail time and be allowed to return to his home country of Australia.

Assange won't have to travel to the continental United States. He is scheduled to plead guilty tomorrow in US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the western Pacific Ocean.

In a court filing in Saipan, the US government said:

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The European Commission today said it found that Apple is violating the Digital Markets Act (DMA) with App Store rules and fees that "prevent app developers from freely steering consumers to alternative channels for offers and content." The commission "informed Apple of its preliminary view" that the company is violating the law, the regulator announced.

This starts a process in which Apple has the right to examine documents in the commission's investigation file and reply in writing to the findings. There is a March 2025 deadline for the commission to make a final ruling.

The commission noted that it "can impose fines up to 10 percent of the gatekeeper's total worldwide turnover," or up to 20 percent for repeat infringements. For "systematic infringements," the European regulator could respond by requiring "a gatekeeper to sell a business or parts of it, or banning the gatekeeper from acquisitions of additional services related to the systemic non-compliance."

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The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) yesterday rejected AT&T's request to end its landline phone obligations. The state agency also urged AT&T to upgrade copper facilities to fiber instead of trying to shut down the outdated portions of its network.

AT&T asked the state to eliminate its Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) obligation, which requires it to provide landline telephone service to any potential customer in its service territory. A CPUC administrative law judge recommended rejection of the application last month, and the commission voted to dismiss AT&T's application with prejudice on Thursday.

"Our vote to dismiss AT&T's application made clear that we will protect customer access to basic telephone service... Our rules were designed to provide that assurance, and AT&T's application did not follow our rules," Commissioner John Reynolds said in a CPUC announcement.

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A 911 vendor's malfunctioning firewall caused a statewide outage in the emergency calling system in Massachusetts on Tuesday afternoon, the state government said. A Massachusetts government press release issued yesterday said the state's 911 vendor, Comtech, "has advised State 911 that they have applied a technical solution to ensure that this does not happen again."

"A preliminary investigation conducted by the State 911 Department and Comtech determined that the outage was the result of a firewall, a safety feature that provides protection against cyberattacks and hacking," the announcement said. "The firewall prevented calls from getting to the 911 dispatch centers, also known as Public Safety Answer Points (PSAPs)."

Comtech's initial review "confirmed that the interruption was not the result of a cyberattack or hack," but "the exact reason the firewall stopped calls from reaching dispatch centers remains under review," the state said. A full review is continuing.

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AT&T is imposing $10 and $20 monthly price hikes on users of older unlimited wireless plans starting in August 2024, the company announced. The single-line price of these 10 "retired" plans will increase by $10 per month, while customers with multiple lines on a plan will be hit with a total monthly increase of $20.

"If you have a single line of service on your plan, your monthly plan charge will increase by $10. If you have multiple lines on your plan, your monthly plan charge will increase by a total of $20. This is the total monthly increase, not per line increase," AT&T said.

AT&T has offered a dizzying array of "unlimited" data plans over the years, all with different limits and perks. While unlimited plans let customers avoid overage fees, speeds can be slowed once customers hit their high-speed data limit. There are also limits on the usage of hotspot data.

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T-Mobile has agreed to change its advertising for the "Price Lock" guarantee that doesn't actually lock in a customer's price, but continues to defend the offer.

T-Mobile users expressed their displeasure about being hit with up to $5 per-line price hikes on plans that seemed to have a lifetime price guarantee, but it was a challenge by AT&T that forced T-Mobile to agree to change its advertising. AT&T filed the challenge with the advertising industry's self-regulatory group, which ruled that T-Mobile's Price Lock ads were misleading.

As we've reported, T-Mobile's guarantee (currently called "Price Lock" and previously the "Un-contract") is simply a promise that T-Mobile will pay your final month's bill if the carrier raises your price and you decide to cancel. Despite that, T-Mobile promised users that it "will never change the price you pay" if you're on a plan with the provision.

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A group of Tesla investors yesterday sued Elon Musk, the company, and its board members, alleging that Tesla was harmed by Musk's diversion of resources to his xAI venture. The diversion of resources includes hiring AI employees away from Tesla, diverting microchips from Tesla to X (formerly Twitter) and xAI, and "xAI's use of Tesla's data to develop xAI's own software/hardware, all without compensation to Tesla," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit in Delaware Court of Chancery was filed by three Tesla shareholders: the Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Pension Fund, Daniel Hazen, and Michael Giampietro. It seeks financial damages for Tesla and the disgorging of Musk's equity stake in xAI to Tesla.

"Could the CEO of Coca-Cola loyally start a competing soft-drink company on the side, then divert scarce ingredients from Coca-Cola to the startup? Could the CEO of Goldman Sachs loyally start a competing financial advisory company on the side, then hire away key bankers from Goldman Sachs to the startup? Could the board of either company loyally permit such conduct without doing anything about it? Of course not," the lawsuit says.

Enlarge / Elon Musk. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

Tesla shareholders have re-approved CEO Elon Musk's $44.9 billion pay package, the company announced today. "Our stockholders have approved the ratification of the 100 percent performance-based stock option award to Elon Musk that was approved by stockholders in 2018," Brandon Ehrhart, Tesla's general counsel and corporate secretary, announced at Tesla's annual shareholder meeting.

Ehrhart also said that shareholders approved a corporate move from Delaware to Texas, and the re-election of board members James Murdoch and Kimbal Musk (Elon Musk's brother). While the official announcement was made at the shareholder meeting late in the day on Thursday, Musk revealed that the yes votes were winning in a social media post last night.

"Both Tesla shareholder resolutions are currently passing by wide margins!" Musk wrote, referring to the pay vote and the move from Delaware to Texas. His post included charts indicating that both shareholder resolutions had more than enough yes votes to surpass the "guaranteed win" threshold.

Enlarge / The standard Starlink satellite dish. (credit: Starlink)

You can now buy a Starlink satellite dish for $299 (plus shipping and tax) in 28 US states due to a discount for areas where SpaceX's broadband network has excess capacity.

Starlink had raised its upfront hardware cost from $499 to $599 in March 2022 but cut the standard price back down to $499 this week. In the 28 states where the network has what SpaceX deems excess capacity, a $200 discount is being applied to bring the price down to $299. It's unclear how long the deal will last, though we can assume the number of states eligible for $299 pricing will fall if a lot of people sign up.

"In the United States, new orders in certain regions are eligible for a one-time savings in areas where Starlink has abundant network availability," a support page posted yesterday said. "$200 will be removed from your Starlink kit price when ordering on Starlink.com and if activated after purchasing from a retailer, a $200 credit will be applied. The savings are only available for Residential Standard service in these designated regional savings areas."