Enlarge / Enhanced Juno image of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot in 2018. It is likely not the same one observed by Cassini in the 1600s. (credit: Gerald Eichstadt and Sean Doran/CC BY-NC-SA)
The planet Jupiter is particularly known for its so-called Great Red Spot, a swirling vortex in the gas giant's atmosphere that has been around since at least 1831. But how it formed and how old it is remain matters of debate. Astronomers in the 1600s, including Giovanni Cassini, also reported a similar spot in their observations of Jupiter that they dubbed the "Permanent Spot." This prompted scientists to question whether the spot Cassini observed is the same one we see today. We now have an answer to that question: The spots are not the same, according to a new paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“From the measurements of sizes and movements, we deduced that it is highly unlikely that the current Great Red Spot was the ‘Permanent Spot’ observed by Cassini,” said co-author Agustín Sánchez-Lavega of the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain. “The ‘Permanent Spot’ probably disappeared sometime between the mid-18th and 19th centuries, in which case we can now say that the longevity of the Red Spot exceeds 190 years.”
The planet Jupiter was known to Babylonian astronomers in the 7th and 8th centuries BCE, as well as to ancient Chinese astronomers; the latter's observations would eventually give birth to the Chinese zodiac in the 4th century BCE, with its 12-year cycle based on the gas giant's orbit around the Sun. In 1610, aided by the emergence of telescopes, Galileo Galilei famously observed Jupiter's four largest moons, thereby bolstering the Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system.
Enlarge / Zork running on an Amiga at the Computerspielemuseum in Berlin, Germany. (credit: Marcin Wichary (CC by 2.0 Deed))
You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building.
That simple sentence first appeared on a PDP-10 mainframe in the 1970s, and the words marked the beginning of what we now know as interactive fiction.
From the bare-bones text adventures of the 1980s to the heartfelt hypertext works of Twine creators, interactive fiction is an art form that continues to inspire a loyal audience. The community for interactive fiction, or IF, attracts readers and players alongside developers and creators. It champions an open source ethos and a punk-like individuality.
Enlarge / Michigan's State Maritime Archaeologist Wayne R. Lusardi takes notes underwater at the Lake Huron WWII wreckage of 2nd Lt. Frank Moody's P-39 Airacobra. Moody, one of the famed Tuskagee Airmen, fatally crashed in 1944. (credit: National Geographic)
In April 1944, a pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen, Second Lieutenant Frank Moody, was on a routine training mission when his plane malfunctioned. Moody lost control of the aircraft and plunged to his death in the chilly waters of Lake Huron. His body was recovered two months later, but the airplane was left at the bottom of the lake—until now. Over the last few years, a team of divers working with the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum in Detroit has been diligently recovering the various parts of Moody's plane to determine what caused the pilot's fatal crash.
That painstaking process is the centerpiece of The Real Red Tails, a new documentary from National Geographic narrated by Sheryl Lee Ralph (Abbot Elementary). The documentary features interviews with the underwater archaeologists working to recover the plane, as well as firsthand accounts from Moody's fellow airmen and stunning underwater footage from the wreck itself.
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first Black military pilots in the US Armed Forces and helped pave the way for the desegregation of the military. The men painted the tails of their P-47 planes red, earning them the nickname the Red Tails. (They initially flew Bell P-39 Airacobras like Moody's downed plane, and later flew P-51 Mustangs.) It was then-First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who helped tip popular opinion in favor of the fledgling unit when she flew with the Airmen's chief instructor, C. Alfred Anderson, in March 1941. The Airmen earned praise for their skill and bravery in combat during World War II, with members being awarded three Distinguished Unit Citations, 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 14 Bronze Stars, 60 Purple Hearts, and at least one Silver Star.
Enlarge / Ernest Shackleton died on board the Quest in 1922. Forty years later, the ship sank off Canada's Atlantic Coast. (credit: Tore Topp/Royal Canadian Geographical Society)
Famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton famously defied the odds to survive the sinking of his ship, Endurance, which became trapped in sea ice in 1914. His luck ran out on his follow-up expedition; he died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1922 on board a ship called Quest. The ship survived that expedition and sailed for another 40 years, eventually sinking in 1962 after its hull was pierced by ice on a seal-hunting run. Shipwreck hunters have now located the remains of the converted Norwegian sealer in the Labrador Sea, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The wreckage of Endurance was found in pristine condition in 2022 at the bottom of the Weddell Sea.
The Quest expedition's relatively minor accomplishments might lack the nail-biting drama of the Endurance saga, but the wreck is nonetheless historically significant. "His final voyage kind of ended that Heroic Age of Exploration, of polar exploration, certainly in the south," renowned shipwreck hunter David Mearns told the BBC. "Afterwards, it was what you would call the scientific age. In the pantheon of polar ships, Quest is definitely an icon."
As previously reported, Endurance set sail from Plymouth, Massachusetts, on August 6, 1914, with Shackleton joining his crew in Buenos Aires, Argentina. By January 1915, the ship had become hopelessly locked in sea ice, unable to continue its voyage. For 10 months, the crew endured the freezing conditions, waiting for the ice to break up. The ship's structure remained intact, but by October 25, Shackleton realized Endurance was doomed. He and his men opted to camp out on the ice some two miles (3.2 km) away, taking as many supplies as they could with them.
Enlarge / "So slim you can play it anywhere." (credit: VGHF)
Gamers of a certain age may remember Nintendo's Game & Watch line, which predated the cartridge-based Game Boy by offering simple, single-serving LCD games that can fetch a pretty penny at auction today. But even most ancient gamers probably don't remember Mego's "Time Out" line, which took the internal of Nintendo's early Game & Watch titles and rebranded them for an American audience that hadn't yet heard of the Japanese game maker.
Now, the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) has helped preserve the original film of an early Mego Time Out commercial, marking the recovered, digitized video as "what we believe is the first commercial for a Nintendo product in the United States." The 30-second TV spot—which is now available in a high-quality digital transfer for the first time—provides a fascinating glimpse into how marketers positioned some of Nintendo's earliest games to a public that still needed to be sold on the very idea of portable gaming.
A 1980 Mego catalog sells Nintendo's Game & Watch games under the toy company's "Time Out" branding. (credit: Mego Museum)
Founded in the 1950s, Mego made a name for itself in the 1970s with licensed movie action figures and early robotic toys like the 2-XL (a childhood favorite of your humble author). In 1980, though, Mego branched out to partner with a brand-new, pre-Donkey Kong Nintendo of America to release rebranded versions of four early Game & Watch titles: Ball (which became Mego's "Toss-Up"), Vermin ("Exterminator"), Fire ("Fireman Fireman"), and Flagman ("Flag Man").
Location tracking service leaks PII, because—incompetence? Seems almost TOO easy.
The post Tile/Life360 Breach: ‘Millions’ of Users’ Data at Risk appeared first on Security Boulevard.
Google announced that it will reduce the amount of personal data it is storing by automatically deleting old data from “Timeline”—the feature that, previously named “Location History,” tracks user routes and trips based on a phone’s location, allowing people to revisit all the places they’ve been in the past.
In an email, Google told users that they will have until December 1, 2024 to save all travels to their mobile devices before the company starts deleting old data. If you use this feature, that means you have about five months before losing your location history.
Moving forward, Google will link the Location information to the devices you use, rather than to the user account(s). And, instead of backing up your data to the cloud, Google will soon start to store it locally on the device.
As I pointed out years ago, Location History allowed me to “spy” on my wife’s whereabouts without having to install anything on her phone. After some digging, I learned that my Google account was added to my wife’s phone’s accounts when I logged in on the Play Store on her phone. The extra account this created on her phone was not removed when I logged out after noticing the tracking issue.
That issue should be solved by implementing this new policy. (Let’s remember, though, that this is an issue that Google formerly considered a feature rather than a problem.)
Once effective, unless you take action and enable the new Timeline settings by December 1, Google will attempt to move the past 90 days of your travel history to the first device you sign in to your Google account on. If you want to keep using Timeline:
In April of 2023, Google Play launched a series of initiatives that gives users control over the way that separate, third-party apps stored data about them. This was seemingly done because Google wanted to increase transparency and control mechanisms for people to control how apps would collect and use their data.
With the latest announcement, it appears that Google is finally tackling its own apps.
Only recently, Google agreed to purge billions of records containing personal information collected from more than 136 million people in the US surfing the internet using its Chrome web browser. But this was part of a settlement in a lawsuit accusing the search giant of illegal surveillance.
It’s nice to see the needle move in the good direction for a change. As Bruce Schneier pointed out in his article Online Privacy and Overfishing:
“Each successive generation of the public is accustomed to the privacy status quo of their youth. What seems normal to us in the security community is whatever was commonplace at the beginning of our careers.”
This has led us all to a world where we don’t even have the expectation of privacy anymore when it comes to what we do online or when using modern technology in general.
If you want to take firmer control over how your location is tracked and shared, we recommend reading How to turn off location tracking on Android.
We don’t just report on privacy—we offer you the option to use it.
Privacy risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep your online privacy yours by using Malwarebytes Privacy VPN.
© Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
Across America, survivors of domestic abuse and stalking are facing a unique location tracking crisis born out of policy failure, unclear corporate responsibility, and potentially risky behaviors around digital sharing that are now common in relationships.
No, we’re not talking about stalkerware. Or hidden Apple AirTags. We’re talking about cars.
Modern cars are the latest consumer “device” to undergo an internet-crazed overhaul, as manufacturers increasingly stuff their automobiles with the types of features you’d expect from a smartphone, not a mode of transportation.
There are cars with WiFi, cars with wireless charging, cars with cameras that not only help while you reverse out of a driveway, but which can detect whether you’re drowsy while on a long haul. Many cars now also come with connected apps that allow you to, through your smartphone, remotely start your vehicle, schedule maintenance, and check your tire pressure.
But one feature in particular, which has legitimate uses in responding to stolen and lost vehicles, is being abused: Location tracking.
It’s time car companies do something about it.
In December, The New York Times revealed the story of a married woman whose husband was abusing the location tracking capabilities of her Mercedes-Benz sedan to harass her. The woman tried every avenue she could to distance herself from her husband. After her husband became physically violent in an argument, she filed a domestic abuse report. Once she fled their home, she got a restraining order. She ignored his calls and texts.
But still her husband could follow her whereabouts by tracking her car—a level of access that Mercedes representatives reportedly could not turn off, as he was considered the rightful owner of the vehicle (according to The New York Times, the husband’s higher credit score convinced the married couple to have the car purchased in his name alone).
As reporter Kashmir Hill wrote of the impasse:
“Even though she was making the payments, had a restraining order against her husband and had been granted sole use of the car during divorce proceedings, Mercedes representatives told her that her husband was the customer so he would be able to keep his access. There was no button she could press to take away the app’s connection to the vehicle.”
This was far from an isolated incident.
In 2023, Reuters reported that a San Francisco woman sued her husband in 2020 for allegations of “assault and sexual battery.” But some months later, the woman’s allegations of domestic abuse grew into allegations of negligence—this time, against the carmaker Tesla.
Tesla, the woman claimed in legal filings, failed to turn off her husband’s access to the location tracking capabilities in their shared Model X SUV, despite the fact that she had obtained a restraining order against her husband, and that she was a named co-owner of the vehicle.
When The New York Times retrieved filings from the San Francisco lawsuit above, attorneys for Tesla argued that the automaker could not realistically play a role in this matter:
“Virtually every major automobile manufacturer offers a mobile app with similar functions for their customers,” the lawyers wrote. “It is illogical and impractical to expect Tesla to monitor every vehicle owner’s mobile app for misuse.”
Tesla was eventually removed from the lawsuit.
In the Reuters story, reporters also spoke with a separate woman who made similar allegations that her ex-husband had tracked her location by using the Tesla app associated with her vehicle. Because the separate woman was a “primary” account owner, she was able to remove the car’s access to the internet, Reuters reported.
Location tracking—and the abuse that can come with it—is a much-discussed topic for Malwarebytes Labs. But the type of location tracking abuse that is happening with shared cars is different because of the value that cars hold in situations of domestic abuse.
A car is an opportunity to physically leave an abusive partner. A car is a chance to start anew in a different, undisclosed location. In harrowing moments, cars have also served as temporary shelter for those without housing.
So when a survivor’s car is tracked by their abuser, it isn’t just a matter of their location and privacy being invaded, it is a matter of a refuge being robbed.
In speaking with the news outlet CalMatters, Yenni Rivera, who works on domestic violence cases, explained the stressful circumstances of exactly this dynamic.
“I hear the story over and over from survivors about being located by their vehicle and having it taken,” Rivera told CalMatters. “It just puts you in a worst case situation because it really triggers you thinking, ‘Should I go back and give in?’ and many do. And that’s why many end up being murdered in their own home. The law should make it easier to leave safely and protected.”
Though the state of California is considering legislative solutions to this problem, national lawmaking is slow.
Instead, we believe that the companies that have the power to do something act on that power. Much like how Malwarebytes and other cybersecurity vendors banded together to launch the Coalition Against Stalkerware, automakers should work together to help users.
Fortunately, an option may already exist.
When the Alliance for Automobile Innovation warned that consumer data collection requests could be weaponized by abusers who want to comb through the car location data of their partners and exes, the automaker General Motors already had a protection built in.
According to Reuters, the roadside assistance service OnStar, which is owned by General Motors, allows any car driver—be they a vehicle’s owner or not—to hide location data from other people who use the same vehicle. Rivian, a new electric carmaker, is reportedly working on a similar feature, said senior vice president of software development Wassym Bensaid in speaking with Reuters.
Though Reuters reported that Rivian had not heard of their company’s technology being leveraged in a situation of domestic abuse, Wassym believed that “users should have a right to control where that information goes.”
We agree.
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