The Marubo people, an isolated Indigenous tribe in the Amazon, have gained high-speed internet access through Elon Musk's Starlink service, drastically altering their traditional way of life. While the internet has brought significant benefits like improved communication and emergency response, it has also introduced challenges such as social media addiction, exposure to inappropriate content, and cultural erosion. The New York Times reports: After only nine months with Starlink, the Marubo are already grappling with the same challenges that have racked American households for years: teenagers glued to phones; group chats full of gossip; addictive social networks; online strangers; violent video games; scams; misinformation; and minors watching pornography. Modern society has dealt with these issues over decades as the internet continued its relentless march. The Marubo and other Indigenous tribes, who have resisted modernity for generations, are now confronting the internet's potential and peril all at once, while debating what it will mean for their identity and culture. The internet was an immediate sensation. "It changed the routine so much that it was detrimental," [admitted one Marubo leader, Enoque Marubo]. "In the village, if you don't hunt, fish and plant, you don't eat." Leaders realized they needed limits. The internet would be switched on for only two hours in the morning, five hours in the evening, and all day Sunday. During those windows, many Marubo are crouched over or reclined in hammocks on their phones. They spend lots of time on WhatsApp. There, leaders coordinate between villages and alert the authorities to health issues and environmental destruction. Marubo teachers share lessons with students in different villages. And everyone is in much closer contact with faraway family and friends. To Enoque, the biggest benefit has been in emergencies. A venomous snake bite can require swift rescue by helicopter. Before the internet, the Marubo used amateur radio, relaying a message between several villages to reach the authorities. The internet made such calls instantaneous. "It's already saved lives," he said. In April, seven months after Starlink's arrival, more than 200 Marubo gathered in a village for meetings. Enoque brought a projector to show a video about bringing Starlink to the villages. As proceedings began, some leaders in the back of the audience spoke up. The internet should be turned off for the meetings, they said. "I don't want people posting in the groups, taking my words out of context," another said. During the meetings, teenagers swiped through Kwai, a Chinese-owned social network. Young boys watched videos of the Brazilian soccer star Neymar Jr. And two 15-year-old girls said they chatted with strangers on Instagram. One said she now dreamed of traveling the world, while the other wants to be a dentist in Sao Paulo. This new window to the outside world had left many in the tribe feeling torn. "Some young people maintain our traditions," said TamaSay Marubo, 42, the tribe's first woman leader. "Others just want to spend the whole afternoon on their phones."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Young people with internet addiction experience changes in their brain chemistry which could lead to more addictive behaviors, research suggests. The study, published in PLOS Mental Health, reviewed previous research using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine how regions of the brain interact in people with internet addiction. They found that the effects were evident throughout multiple neural networks in the brains of young people, and that there was increased activity in parts of the brain when participants were resting. At the same time, there was an overall decrease in the functional connectivity in parts of the brain involved in active thinking, which is the executive control network of the brain responsible for memory and decision-making. The research found that these changes resulted in addictive behaviors and tendencies in adolescents, as well as behavioral changes linked to mental health, development, intellectual ability and physical coordination. "Adolescence is a crucial developmental stage during which people go through significant changes in their biology, cognition and personalities," said Max Chang, the study's lead author and an MSc student at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (GOS ICH). "As a result, the brain is particularly vulnerable to internet addiction-related urges during this time, such as compulsive internet usage, cravings towards usage of the mouse or keyboard and consuming media. The findings from our study show that this can lead to potentially negative behavioral and developmental changes that could impact the lives of adolescents. For example, they may struggle to maintain relationships and social activities, lie about online activity and experience irregular eating and disrupted sleep." Chang said he hopes the findings allow early signs of internet addiction to be treated effectively. "Clinicians could potentially prescribe treatment to aim at certain brain regions or suggest psychotherapy or family therapy targeting key symptoms of internet addiction," said Chang. "Importantly, parental education on internet addiction is another possible avenue of prevention from a public health standpoint. Parents who are aware of the early signs and onset of internet addiction will more effectively handle screen time, impulsivity, and minimize the risk factors surrounding internet addiction."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Several broadband industry lobby groups have filed lawsuits against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in an attempt to overturn the recently approved net neutrality rules. The regulations, which prohibit blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization, are scheduled to take effect on July 22. The lawsuits were filed in various US appeals courts by groups representing cable, telecom, and mobile Internet service providers, including NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, USTelecom, CTIA-The Wireless Association, and several state-level associations. The groups argue that the FCC lacks the authority to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 without explicit instructions from Congress. In addition to the lawsuits, the industry groups have also petitioned the FCC for a stay of the rules, claiming that their members will suffer irreparable harm if the regulations take effect while litigation is pending. The FCC is expected to reject the petition, but the groups can then seek an injunction from appeals court judges to prevent enforcement. The industry's legal challenge is based on the Supreme Court's evolving approach to the "major questions" doctrine, which limits federal agencies' ability to make decisions on significant issues without clear congressional authorization. However, FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks maintains that the agency's authority to regulate broadband as a telecommunications service is "clear as day."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Vice President Kamala Harris has announced the formation of a new partnership to help provide internet access to 80% of Africa by 2030, up from roughly 40% now. From a report: The announcement comes as follow-through on Harris' visit to the continent last year and in conjunction with this week's visit to Washington by Kenyan President William Ruto. Harris and the Kenyan leader had a public chat on Friday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about how public-private partnerships can increase economic growth. "Many could rightly argue that the future is on the continent of Africa," said Harris, noting that the median age in Africa is 19, a sign of the potential for economic growth. "It is not about, and simply about aid, but about investment and understanding the capacity that exists." Africa has struggled to obtain the capital needed to build up its industrial and technological sectors.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Founded in 1963, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers held a special event Sunday that they said would be "inspiring engineering for the next 50 years." The event featured talks on the origins of the internet from 80-year-old "father of the internet" Vint Cerf, along with John Shoch (who helped develop the Ethernet and internetwork protocols at Xerox PARC), Judith Estrin (who worked with Cerf on the TCP project), and Robert Kahn (who with Cerf first proposed the IP and TCP protocols). Ethernet co-inventor Bob Metcalfe also spoke at the end of the event. Long-time Slashdot reader repett0 was an onsite volunteer, and shares that "it was incredible to meet and greet such a wonderful mix of people making technology happen... [T]he event celebrated many key technologies and innovators from the past 50 years and considerations of what is to come in the next 50 years." Video streams are available and more are coming online (including interviews with key innovators, society leadership, and more). If you could not make this event, follow-on activities continue, including the People-Centered Internet Imagine Workshop where a mix of society is working together to consider how to improve humanity's intersection with ever-expanding abilities thanks to technology. They add that the event was made possible "through the collaboration of many professional computing societies" including the IEEE, People-Centered Internet, Google, Internet Society, IEEE Computer Society, GIANT Protocol, IEEE Foundation — and volunteers from the SF Bay Area ACM and Internet Society.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Minnesota this week eliminated two laws that made it harder for cities and towns to build their own broadband networks. From a report: The state-imposed restrictions were repealed in an omnibus commerce policy bill signed on Tuesday by Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat. Minnesota was previously one of about 20 states that imposed significant restrictions on municipal broadband. The number can differ depending on who's counting because of disagreements over what counts as a significant restriction. But the list has gotten smaller in recent years because states including Arkansas, Colorado, and Washington repealed laws that hindered municipal broadband. The Minnesota bill enacted this week struck down a requirement that municipal telecommunications networks be approved in an election with 65 percent of the vote. The law is over a century old, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's Community Broadband Network Initiative wrote yesterday.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is adding screenshot prevention controls in Edge to block you from taking screenshots at work. "It's all designed to prevent you from sharing screenshots with competitors, relatives, and journalists using Microsoft Edge for Business," reports PCWorld. From the report: Specifically, IT managers at corporations will be able to tag web pages as protected, as defined in various Microsoft policy engines in Microsoft 365, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Microsoft Intune Mobile Application Management and Microsoft Purview, Microsoft said. The screenshot prevention feature will be available to customers in the "coming months," Microsoft said. It's also unclear whether third-party tools will be somehow blocked from taking screenshots or recording video, too. Microsoft will also roll out a way to force Edge for Business users to automatically update their browsers. The feature will enter a preview phase over the next few weeks, Microsoft said. "The Edge management service will enable IT admins to see which devices have Edge instances that are out of date and at risk," Microsoft said. "It will also provide mitigating controls, such as forcing a browser restart to install updates, enabling automatic browser updates or enabling enhanced security mode for added protections."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: People whose names get mangled by autocorrect have urged technology companies to fix the problem faster, with one person whose name gets switched to "Satan" saying: "I am tired of it." People with Irish, Indian and Welsh names are among those calling for improvements to the systems that operate on phones and computers as part of the "I am not a typo" campaign. "It is important that technology becomes more inclusive," said Savan-Chandni Gandecha, 34, a British Indian content creator whose name, which means monsoon moonlight, has been autocorrected to Satan. "My name has also been corrected to Savant," he said. "It is sometimes corrected to Savan, or the hyphen is not accepted by online forms and that irks me," he said. "Even in India my name gets corrected to "Sawan", and it's not just an English issue. It's a multi-language thing." The campaign has estimated that four out of 10 names of babies born in England and Wales in 2021 were deemed "wrong" or "not accepted" when tested on Microsoft's English dictionary. Dhruti Shah, a journalist, has backed the campaign after seeing her name autocorrected to "Dirty" and "Dorito". She said: "My first name isn't even that long -- only six characters -- but yet when it comes up as an error or it's mangled and considered an unknown entity, it's like saying that it's not just your name that's wrong, but you are." The campaign group -- established by a group of people working in the creative industries in London -- wrote an open letter to technology companies, which pointed out that between 2017 and 2021, 2,328 people named Esmae were born, compared with 36 Nigels. Esmae gets autocorrected to Admar, while Nigel is unchanged. "There are so many diverse names in the global majority but autocorrect is western- and white-focused," said Gandecha. Rashmi Dyal-Chand, a professor at Northeastern University in the US whose name is sometimes corrected to Sashimi, is supporting the latest campaign and said: "For people with names like mine, autocorrect is not convenient and helpful. It is unhelpful. And yes -- it is harmful." "We all increasingly rely on smartphones, tablets, word processors, and apps that use autocorrect. Yet autocorrect incorporates a set of defaults -- including dictionaries -- that help some of its users to communicate seamlessly at the expense of others who cannot." Karen Fox, whose children are called Eoin and Niamh, said of autocorrect: "The red line bothers me -- I didn't choose the 'wrong' name for my child. Tech companies update dictionaries with slang all the time and I think it should be an easy thing to do and definitely a priority."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new Pew Research Center analysis shows just how fleeting online content actually is: 1. A quarter of all webpages that existed at one point between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible, as of October 2023. In most cases, this is because an individual page was deleted or removed on an otherwise functional website. 2. For older content, this trend is even starker. Some 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are not available today, compared with 8% of pages that existed in 2023. This "digital decay" occurs in many different online spaces. We examined the links that appear on government and news websites, as well as in the "References" section of Wikipedia pages as of spring 2023. This analysis found that: 1. 23% of news webpages contain at least one broken link, as do 21% of webpages from government sites. News sites with a high level of site traffic and those with less are about equally likely to contain broken links. Local-level government webpages (those belonging to city governments) are especially likely to have broken links. 2. 54% of Wikipedia pages contain at least one link in their "References" section that points to a page that no longer exists.[...]

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It's amazing, and a little sad, to think that something created in 1989 that changed how people used and viewed the then-nascent Internet had nearly vanished by 2024. Nearly, that is, because the dogged researchers and enthusiasts at The Serial Port channel on YouTube have found what is likely the last existing copy of Archie. Archie, first crafted by Alan Emtage while a student at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, allowed for the searching of various "anonymous" FTP servers around what was then a very small web of universities, researchers, and government and military nodes. It was groundbreaking; it was the first echo of the "anything, anywhere" Internet to come. And when The Serial Port went looking, it very much did not exist. While Archie would eventually be supplanted by Gopher, web portals, and search engines, it remains a useful way to index FTP sites and certainly should be preserved. The Serial Port did this, and the road to get there is remarkable and intriguing. You are best off watching the video of their rescue, along with its explanatory preamble. But I present here some notable bits of the tale, perhaps to tempt you into digging further.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Scientist: Efforts to build a global quantum internet have received a boost from two developments in quantum information storage that could one day make it possible to communicate securely across hundreds or thousands of kilometers. The internet as it exists today involves sending strings of digital bits, or 0s and 1s, in the form of electrical or optical signals, to transmit information. A quantum internet, which could be used to send unhackable communications or link up quantum computers, would use quantum bits instead. These rely on a quantum property called entanglement, a phenomenon in which particles can be linked and measuring one particle instantly influences the state of another, no matter how far apart they are. Sending these entangled quantum bits, or qubits, over very long distances, requires a quantum repeater, a piece of hardware that can store the entangled state in memory and reproduce it to transmit it further down the line. These would have to be placed at various points on a long-distance network to ensure a signal gets from A to B without being degraded. Quantum repeaters don't yet exist, but two groups of researchers have now demonstrated long-lasting entanglement memory in quantum networks over tens of kilometers, which are the key characteristics needed for such a device. Can Knaut at Harvard University and his colleagues set up a quantum network consisting of two nodes separated by a loop of optical fibre that spans 35 kilometers across the city of Boston. Each node contains both a communication qubit, used to transmit information, and a memory qubit, which can store the quantum state for up to a second. "Our experiment really put us in a position where we're really close to working on a quantum repeater demonstration," says Knaut. To set up the link, Knaut and his team entangled their first node, which contains a type of diamond with an atom-sized hole in it, with a photon that they sent to their second node, which contains a similar diamond. When the photon arrives at the second diamond, it becomes entangled with both nodes. The diamonds are able to store this state for a second. A fully functioning quantum repeater using similar technology could be demonstrated in the next couple of years, says Knaut, which would enable quantum networks connecting cities or countries. In separate work, Xiao-Hui Bao at the University of Science and Technology of China and his colleagues entangled three nodes together, each separated by around 10 kilometers in the city of Hefei. Bao and his team's nodes use supercooled clouds of hundreds of millions of rubidium atoms to generate entangled photons, which they then sent across the three nodes. The central of the three nodes is able to coordinate these photons to link the atom clouds, which act as a form of memory. The key advance for Bao and his team's network is to match the frequency of the photons meeting at the central node, which will be crucial for quantum repeaters connecting different nodes. While the storage time was less than Knaut's team, at 100 microseconds, it is still long enough to perform useful operations on the transmitted information.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to a new study published in the journal Technology, Mind and Behavior, researchers found that internet use is associated with greater wellbeing in people around the world. "Our analysis is the first to test whether or not internet access, mobile internet access and regular use of the internet relates to wellbeing on a global level," said Prof Andrew Przybylski, of the University of Oxford, who co-authored the work. The Guardian reports: [T]he study describes how Przybylski and Dr Matti Vuorre, of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, analysed data collected through interviews involving about 1,000 people each year from 168 countries as part of the Gallup World Poll. Participants were asked about their internet access and use as well as eight different measures of wellbeing, such as life satisfaction, social life, purpose in life and feelings of community wellbeing. The team analyzed data from 2006 to 2021, encompassing about 2.4 million participants aged 15 and above. The researchers employed more than 33,000 statistical models, allowing them to explore various possible associations while taking into account factors that could influence them, such as income, education, health problems and relationship status. The results reveal that internet access, mobile internet access and use generally predicted higher measures of the different aspects of wellbeing, with 84.9% of associations between internet connectivity and wellbeing positive, 0.4% negative and 14.7% not statistically significant. The study was not able to prove cause and effect, but the team found measures of life satisfaction were 8.5% higher for those who had internet access. Nor did the study look at the length of time people spent using the internet or what they used it for, while some factors that could explain associations may not have be considered. Przybylski said it was important that policy on technology was evidence-based and that the impact of any interventions was tracked.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission clarified its net neutrality rules to prohibit more kinds of fast lanes. While the FCC voted to restore net neutrality rules on April 25, it didn't release the final text of the order until yesterday. The final text (PDF) has some changes compared to the draft version released a few weeks before the vote. Both the draft and final rules ban paid prioritization, or fast lanes that application providers have to pay Internet service providers for. But some net neutrality proponents raised concerns about the draft text because it would have let ISPs speed up certain types of applications as long as the application providers don't have to pay for special treatment. The advocates wanted the FCC to clarify its no-throttling rule to explicitly prohibit ISPs from speeding up applications instead of only forbidding the slowing of applications down. Without such a provision, they argued that ISPs could charge consumers more for plans that speed up specific types of content. [...] "We clarify that a BIAS [Broadband Internet Access Service] provider's decision to speed up 'on the basis of Internet content, applications, or services' would 'impair or degrade' other content, applications, or services which are not given the same treatment," the FCC's final order said. The "impair or degrade" clarification means that speeding up is banned because the no-throttling rule says that ISPs "shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content, application, or service." The updated language in the final order "clearly prohibits ISPs from limiting fast lanes to apps or categories of apps they select," leaving no question as to whether the practice is prohibited, said Stanford Law professor Barbara van Schewick. Under the original plan, "there was no way to predict which kinds of fast lanes the FCC might ultimately find to violate the no-throttling rule," she wrote. "This would have given ISPs cover to flood the market with various fast-lane offerings, arguing that their version does not violate the no-throttling rule and daring the FCC to enforce its rule. The final order prevents this from happening."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Le tremblement de terre qui a touché Taïwan le mois dernier a fait redouter une hausse du prix de la DRAM. En raison d’un effet très limité sur les sites de production présents sur l’île, un premier rapport de TrendForce se montrait plutôt rassurant... [Tout lire]

Researchers have discovered a new attack that can force VPN applications to route traffic outside the encrypted tunnel, thereby exposing the user's traffic to potential snooping or manipulation. This vulnerability, named TunnelVision, is found in almost all VPNs on non-Linux and non-Android systems. It's believe that the vulnerability "may have been possible since 2002 and may already have been discovered and used in the wild since then," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The effect of TunnelVision is "the victim's traffic is now decloaked and being routed through the attacker directly," a video demonstration explained. "The attacker can read, drop or modify the leaked traffic and the victim maintains their connection to both the VPN and the Internet." The attack works by manipulating the DHCP server that allocates IP addresses to devices trying to connect to the local network. A setting known as option 121 allows the DHCP server to override default routing rules that send VPN traffic through a local IP address that initiates the encrypted tunnel. By using option 121 to route VPN traffic through the DHCP server, the attack diverts the data to the DHCP server itself. [...] The attack can most effectively be carried out by a person who has administrative control over the network the target is connecting to. In that scenario, the attacker configures the DHCP server to use option 121. It's also possible for people who can connect to the network as an unprivileged user to perform the attack by setting up their own rogue DHCP server. The attack allows some or all traffic to be routed through the unencrypted tunnel. In either case, the VPN application will report that all data is being sent through the protected connection. Any traffic that's diverted away from this tunnel will not be encrypted by the VPN and the Internet IP address viewable by the remote user will belong to the network the VPN user is connected to, rather than one designated by the VPN app. Interestingly, Android is the only operating system that fully immunizes VPN apps from the attack because it doesn't implement option 121. For all other OSes, there are no complete fixes. When apps run on Linux there's a setting that minimizes the effects, but even then TunnelVision can be used to exploit a side channel that can be used to de-anonymize destination traffic and perform targeted denial-of-service attacks. Network firewalls can also be configured to deny inbound and outbound traffic to and from the physical interface. This remedy is problematic for two reasons: (1) a VPN user connecting to an untrusted network has no ability to control the firewall and (2) it opens the same side channel present with the Linux mitigation. The most effective fixes are to run the VPN inside of a virtual machine whose network adapter isn't in bridged mode or to connect the VPN to the Internet through the Wi-Fi network of a cellular device. You can learn more about the research here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CircleID reports that Multinational internet service provider Cogent recently announced that it was offering $206 million in secured notes (a corporate bond backed by assets). "The unusual part is what it's using as security: some of its IPv4 addresses and the leases on those IPv4 addresses." All internet service providers (ISPs) give IP addresses to their users, but Cogent was among the first to lease those addresses independently of internet access. (Internet access customers normally require a unique address as part of their service.) Sources are hard to find, but prevailing wisdom is that they have over 10M addresses leased for about $0.30 per month, or $36M per year in revenue. The notes are expected to be repaid in five years. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader penciling_in for sharing the article.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent, published last month: Humans now share the web equally with bots, according to a major new report -- as some fear that the internet is dying. In recent months, the so-called "dead internet theory" has gained new popularity. It suggests that much of the content online is in fact automatically generated, and that the number of humans on the web is dwindling in comparison with bot accounts. Now a new report from cyber security company Imperva suggests that it is increasingly becoming true. Nearly half, 49.6 per cent, of all internet traffic came from bots last year, its "Bad Bot Report" indicates. That is up 2 percent in comparison with last year, and is the highest number ever seen since the report began in 2013. In some countries, the picture is worse. In Ireland, 71 per cent of internet traffic is automated, it said. Some of that rise is the result of the adoption of generative artificial intelligence and large language models. Companies that build those systems use bots scrape the internet and gather data that can then be used to train them. Some of those bots are becoming increasingly sophisticated, Imperva warned. More and more of them come from residential internet connections, which makes them look more legitimate. "Automated bots will soon surpass the proportion of internet traffic coming from humans, changing the way that organizations approach building and protecting their websites and applications," said Nanhi Singh, general manager for application security at Imperva. "As more AI-enabled tools are introduced, bots will become omnipresent."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Depuis 1889, le premier mai est connue comme la journée internationale des travailleurs ; depuis 1969, c’est aussi l’anniversaire d’AMD. La création de l’Advanced Micro Devices remonte en effet au 1er mai 1969... [Tout lire]

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission chair today made a final plea to Congress, asking for money to continue a broadband-affordability program that gave out its last round of $30 discounts to people with low incomes in April. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) has lowered monthly Internet bills for people who qualify for benefits, but Congress allowed funding to run out. People may receive up to $14 in May if their ISP opted into offering a partial discount during the program's final month. After that there will be no financial help for the 23 million households enrolled in the program. "Additional funding from Congress is the only near-term solution for keeping the ACP going," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wrote in a letter to members of Congress today. "If additional funding is not promptly appropriated, the one in six households nationwide that rely on this program will face rising bills and increasing disconnection. In fact, according to our survey of ACP beneficiaries, 77 percent of participating households report that losing this benefit would disrupt their service by making them change their plan or lead to them dropping Internet service entirely." The ACP started with $14.2 billion allocated by Congress in late 2021. The $30 monthly ACP benefit replaced the previous $50 monthly subsidy from the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.