Kelly Newman – Page 49

Climate change boosted Milton’s landfall strength from Category 2 to 3

atmospheric science, climate change, Earth science, Hurricane Milton, hurricanes, meteorology, Science, tropical cyclones / Kelly Newman / October 11, 2024

Using this simulated data set, called IRIS, the researchers selected for those storms that made landfall along a track similar to that of Milton. Using these, they show that the warming climate has boosted the frequency of storms of Milton’s intensity by 40 percent. Correspondingly, the maximum wind speeds of similar storms have been boosted by about 10 percent. In Milton’s case, that means that, in the absence of climate change, it was likely to have made landfall as a Category 2 storm, rather than the Category 3 it actually was.

Rainfall

The lack of full meteorological data caused a problem when it came to analyzing Milton’s rainfall. The researchers ended up having to analyze rainfall more generally. They took four data sets that do track rainfall across these regions and tracked the link between extreme rainfall and the warming climate to estimate how much more often extreme events occur in a world that is now 1.3° C warmer than it was in pre-industrial times.

They focus on instances of extreme one-day rainfall within the June to November period, looking specifically at 1-in-10-year and 1-in-100-year events. Both of these produced similar results, suggesting that heavy one-day rainfalls are about twice as likely in today’s climates, and the most extreme of these are between 20 and 30 percent more intense.

These results came from three of the four data sets used, which produced largely similar results. The fourth dataset they used suggested a far stronger effect of climate change, but since it wasn’t consistent with the rest, these results weren’t used.

As with the Helene analysis, it’s worth noting that this work represents a specific snapshot in time along a long-term warming trajectory. In other words, it’s looking at the impact of 1.3° C of warming at a time when our emissions are nearly at the point where they commit us to at least 1.5° C of warming. And that will tilt the scales further in favor of extreme weather events like this.

Climate change boosted Milton’s landfall strength from Category 2 to 3 Read More »

5th Circuit rules ISP should have terminated Internet users accused of piracy

ISP Grande loses appeal as 5th Circuit sides with Universal, Warner, and Sony.

Illustration of a laptop with the skull-and-crossbones pirate symbol on the screen.

Credit: Getty Images | natatravel

Music publishing companies notched another court victory against a broadband provider that refused to terminate the accounts of Internet users accused of piracy. In a ruling on Wednesday, the conservative-leaning US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit sided with the big three record labels against Grande Communications, a subsidiary of Astound Broadband.

The appeals court ordered a new trial on damages because it said the $46.8 million award was too high, but affirmed the lower court’s finding that Grande is liable for contributory copyright infringement.

“Here, Plaintiffs [Universal, Warner, and Sony] proved at trial that Grande knew (or was willfully blind to) the identities of its infringing subscribers based on Rightscorp’s notices, which informed Grande of specific IP addresses of subscribers engaging in infringing conduct. But Grande made the choice to continue providing services to them anyway, rather than taking simple measures to prevent infringement,” said the unanimous ruling by three judges.

Rightscorp is a copyright-enforcement company used by the music labels to detect copyright infringement. The company monitors torrent downloads to find users’ IP addresses and sends infringement notices to Internet providers that serve subscribers using those IP addresses.

“The evidence at trial demonstrated that Grande had a simple measure available to it to prevent further damages to copyrighted works (i.e., terminating repeat infringing subscribers), but that Grande never took it,” the 5th Circuit ruling said. “On appeal, Grande and its amici make a policy argument—that terminating Internet services is not a simple measure, but instead a ‘draconian overreaction’ that is a ‘drastic and overbroad remedy’—but a reasonable jury could, and did, find that Grande had basic measures, including termination, available to it. And because Grande does not dispute any of the evidence on which Plaintiffs relied to prove material contribution, there is no basis to conclude a reasonable jury lacked sufficient evidence to reach that conclusion.”

Grande’s pre-lawsuit policy: No terminations

The ruling described how Grande implemented a new policy on copyright infringement in 2010, a year after being purchased by a private equity firm:

Under Grande’s new policy, Grande no longer terminated subscribers for copyright infringement, no matter how many infringement notices Grande received. As Grande’s corporate representative at trial admitted, Grande “could have received a thousand notices about a customer, and it would not have terminated that customer for copyright infringement.”

Further, under Grande’s new policy, Grande did not take other remedial action to address infringing subscribers, such as suspending their accounts or requiring them to contact Grande to maintain their services. Instead, Grande would notify subscribers of copyright infringement complaints through letters that described the nature of the complaint and possible causes and advised that any infringing conduct is unlawful and should cease. Grande maintained that policy for nearly seven years, until May 2017.

The record labels sued Grande in April 2017. “It was not until after Plaintiffs initiated this lawsuit that Grande resumed terminating subscribers for copyright infringement,” the ruling said.

In November 2022, the labels were awarded $46,766,200 in statutory damages by a jury in US District Court for the Western District of Texas. But the District Court will have to hold a new damages trial following this week’s appeals court ruling.

Back in 2020, we wrote about the voir dire questions that record labels intended to ask prospective jurors in their case against Grande. One of those questions was, “Have you ever read or visited Ars Technica or TorrentFreak?”

Damages to be reduced

Although the 5th Circuit agreed that Grande is liable for contributory copyright infringement, judges found that the lower court “erred in granting JMOL [judgment as a matter of law] that each of the 1,403 songs in suit was eligible for a separate award of statutory damages.” The damages were $33,333 per song.

The 5th Circuit remanded the case to the district court for a new trial on damages. Record labels can expect a lower payout because the appeals court said they can’t obtain separate damages awards for multiple songs on the same album.

“The district court determined that each of Plaintiffs’ 1,403 sound recordings that was infringed entitled Plaintiffs to an individual statutory damages award,” the 5th Circuit said. “Grande contends that the text of the Copyright Act requires a different result: Whenever more than one of those recordings appeared on the same album, Plaintiffs are entitled to only one statutory damages award for that album, regardless of how many individual recordings from the album were infringed. Grande has the better reading of the text of the statute.”

The Copyright Act says that “all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work,” the court said. In the Grande case, record labels sought damages for each song but conceded that “each album constitutes a compilation.”

“In sum, the record evidence indicates that many of the works in suit are compilations (albums) comprising individual works (songs),” the 5th Circuit court wrote. “The statute unambiguously instructs that a compilation is eligible for only one statutory damage award, whether or not its constituent works are separately copyrightable.”

Larger battle could head to Supreme Court

The Grande case is part of a larger battle between ISPs and copyright holders. The industries are waiting to learn whether the Supreme Court will take up a challenge by cable firm Cox Communications, which wants to overturn a ruling in a similar copyright infringement lawsuit brought by Sony.

The US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit affirmed a jury’s finding that Cox was guilty of willful contributory infringement, though it also vacated a $1 billion damages award because it found that “Cox did not profit from its subscribers’ acts of infringement.” Cox and other ISPs argue that copyright-infringement notices sent on behalf of record labels aren’t reliable and that forcing ISPs to disconnect users based on unproven piracy accusations will cause great harm.

A Supreme Court brief filed by Altice USA, Frontier Communications, Lumen (aka CenturyLink), and Verizon said the 4th Circuit ruling “imperils the future of the Internet” by “expos[ing] Internet service providers to massive liability if they do not carry out mass Internet evictions.” Cutting off a subscriber’s service would hurt other residents in a home “who did not infringe and may have no connection to the infringer,” they wrote.

Cox told the Supreme Court that ISPs “have no way of verifying whether a bot-generated notice is accurate. And no one can reliably identify the actual individual who used a particular Internet connection for an illegal download. The ISP could connect the IP address to a particular subscriber’s account, but the subscriber in question might be a university or a conference center with thousands of individual users on its network, or a grandmother who unwittingly left her Internet connection open to the public. Thus, the subscriber is often not the infringer and may not even know about the infringement.”

Cox asked the Supreme Court to decide whether the 4th Circuit “err[ed] in holding that a service provider can be held liable for ‘materially contributing’ to copyright infringement merely because it knew that people were using certain accounts to infringe and did not terminate access, without proof that the service provider affirmatively fostered infringement or otherwise intended to promote it.”

Record labels also petitioned the Supreme Court because they want the original $1 billion verdict reinstated. Digital rights groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have backed Cox, saying that forcing ISPs to terminate subscribers accused of piracy “would result in innocent and vulnerable users losing essential Internet access.”

Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.

5th Circuit rules ISP should have terminated Internet users accused of piracy Read More »

In a rare disclosure, the Pentagon provides an update on the X-37B spaceplane

Boeing, military space, Science, Space, space force, spaceplane, Uncategorized, X-37b / Kelly Newman / October 10, 2024

“When it’s close to the Earth, it’s close enough to the atmosphere to turn where it is,” she said. “Which means our adversaries don’t know—and that happens on the far side of the Earth from our adversaries—where it’s going to come up next. And we know that that drives them nuts. And I’m really glad about that.”

Breaking the silence

The Pentagon rarely releases an update on the X-37B spaceplane in the middle of a mission. During previous flights, military officials typically provided some basic information about the mission before its launch, then went silent until the X-37B returned for landing. The military keeps specifics about the spaceplane’s activities in orbit a secret.

This made the Space Force’s announcement Thursday somewhat of a surprise. When the seventh flight of the X-37B launched, there were indications that the spacecraft would soar into a much higher orbit than it did on any of its six prior missions.

In February, a sleuthing satellite tracking hobbyist spotted the X-37B in orbit by observing sunlight reflected off of the spacecraft as it flew thousands of miles above Earth. Follow-up detections confirmed the discovery, allowing amateur observers to estimate that the X-37B was flying in a highly elliptical orbit ranging between roughly 300 and 38,600 miles in altitude (186-by-23,985 miles). The orbit was inclined 59.1 degrees to the equator.

On its previous missions, the X-37B was confined to low-Earth orbit a few hundred miles above the planet. When it became apparent that the latest mission was cruising at a significantly higher altitude, analysts and space enthusiasts speculated on what the secret spaceplane was doing and how it would come back to Earth. A direct reentry into the atmosphere from the spaceplane’s elliptical orbit would expose the craft’s heat shield to hotter temperatures than any of its previous returns.

Now, we have an answer to the latter question.

As for what it’s doing up there, the Space Force said the spaceplane on this mission has “conducted radiation effect experiments and has been testing space domain awareness technologies in a highly elliptical orbit.” The orbit brings the X-37B through the Van Allen radiation belts and crosses several orbital regimes populated by US and foreign communications, navigation, and surveillance satellites.

Military officials have said previous X-37B flights have tested a Hall-effect ion thruster and tested other experimental space technologies without elaborating on their details. X-37Bs have also secretly deployed small military satellites in orbit.

In a rare disclosure, the Pentagon provides an update on the X-37B spaceplane Read More »

Trump wants CBS license revoked; FCC chair explains that isn’t going to happen

Policy, trump cbs license / Kelly Newman / October 10, 2024

“The First Amendment and the Communications Act expressly prohibit the Commission from censoring broadcast matter,” the FCC website says. “Our role in overseeing program content is very limited. We license only individual broadcast stations. We do not license TV or radio networks (such as CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox) or other organizations that stations have relationships with, such as PBS or NPR, except if those entities are also station licensees.”

Trump’s call to punish CBS came about a month after he expressed anger at ABC News debate moderators by saying that ABC should have its license taken away. Rosenworcel criticized Trump in that instance as well.

Rerun from 2017

In October 2017, when Trump was president, he criticized NBC and wrote that “network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked.” Democrats on the FCC and in Congress immediately rebuked Trump.

Then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican who was Trump’s selection to chair the agency, weighed in six days later. Pai didn’t make any direct reference to Trump, but said, “I believe in the First Amendment. The FCC under my leadership will stand for the First Amendment. And under the law, the FCC does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast.”

Earlier this week, Rosenworcel criticized a legal threat that Florida state government officials issued to broadcast TV stations over the airing of a political ad that criticized abortion restrictions in Florida’s Heartbeat Protection Act.

“The right of broadcasters to speak freely is rooted in the First Amendment,” Rosenworcel said. “Threats against broadcast stations for airing content that conflicts with the government’s views are dangerous and undermine the fundamental principle of free speech.”

Trump wants CBS license revoked; FCC chair explains that isn’t going to happen Read More »

Alleged Switch modder takes on Nintendo’s legal might without a lawyer

gaming / Kelly Newman / October 8, 2024

When faced with a legal threat from Nintendo, most alleged modders, ROM pirates, and/or emulator makers will simply give in to a cease-and-desist demand, reach an out of court settlement, or plead guilty rather than hiring legal representation for what could be a lengthy, costly trial. Then there’s Ryan Daly, alleged owner of ModdedHardware.com, who has apparently decided to represent himself as a recent lawsuit brought against him by the Switch maker moves forward.

Nintendo says it first approached Daly in March about his site (currently password-protected but archived here) and its sales of modded Switch consoles, console modding services, and piracy-enabling devices such as the MIG Switch card that were pre-installed with popular Nintendo games. At that time, Daly agreed “both verbally and in signed writing” to refrain from these infringing sales, according to Nintendo. It was only after months of Daly continuing those sales and largely ignoring further contact from Nintendo that the company says it was forced to file its June lawsuit in a Seattle federal court.

In that initial lawsuit, Nintendo said it “received a communication from a lawyer purporting to represent [Daly]” in June, followed by a message days later that Daly “was in the process of obtaining new counsel.” That search for new counsel has seemingly not moved forward, as last week Daly filed a pro se response to Nintendo’s allegations, representing himself without any outside legal advice (thanks, TorrentFreak).

Alleged Switch modder takes on Nintendo’s legal might without a lawyer Read More »

Winamp really whips open source coders into frenzy with its source release

git, GitHub, GPL, GPL infringement, llama group, shoutcast, source code, Tech, winamp / Kelly Newman / October 8, 2024

As people in the many, many busy GitHub issue threads are suggesting, coding has come a long way since the heyday of the Windows-98-era Winamp player, and Winamp seems to have rushed its code onto a platform it does not really understand.

Winamp flourished around the same time as illegal MP3 networks such as Napster, Limewire, and Kazaa, providing a more capable means of organizing and playing deeply compressed music with incorrect metadata. After a web shutdown in 2013 that seemed inevitable in hindsight, Winamp’s assets were purchased by a company named Radionomy in 2014, and a new version was due out in 2019, one that aimed to combine local music libraries with web streaming of podcasts and radio.

Winamp did get that big update in 2022, though the app was “still in many ways an ancient app,” Ars’ Andrew Cunningham wrote then. There was support for music NFTs added at the end of 2022.

In its press release for the code availability, the Brussels-based Llama Group SA, with roughly 100 employees, says that “Tens of millions of users still use Winamp for Windows every month.” It plans to release “two major official versions per year with new features,” as well as offering Winamp for Creators, intended for artists or labels to manage their music, licensing, distribution, and monetization on various platforms.

Winamp really whips open source coders into frenzy with its source release Read More »

Reports: China hacked Verizon and AT&T, may have accessed US wiretap systems

AT&T, Policy, salt typoon, verizon / Kelly Newman / October 7, 2024

Chinese government hackers penetrated the networks of several large US-based Internet service providers and may have gained access to systems used for court-authorized wiretaps of communications networks, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. “People familiar with the matter” told the WSJ that hackers breached the networks of companies including Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen (also known as CenturyLink).

“A cyberattack tied to the Chinese government penetrated the networks of a swath of US broadband providers, potentially accessing information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized network wiretapping requests,” the WSJ wrote. “For months or longer, the hackers might have held access to network infrastructure used to cooperate with lawful US requests for communications data, according to people familiar with the matter.”

These “attackers also had access to other tranches of more generic Internet traffic,” according to the WSJ’s sources. The attack is being attributed to a Chinese hacking group called Salt Typhoon.

The Washington Post reported on the hacking campaign yesterday, describing it as “an audacious espionage operation likely aimed in part at discovering the Chinese targets of American surveillance.” The Post report attributed the information to US government officials and said an investigation by the FBI, other intelligence agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security “is in its early stages.”

The Post report said there are indications that China’s Ministry of State Security is involved in the attacks.

Verizon reportedly working with FBI

Verizon reportedly set up a war room at its facility in Ashburn, Virginia, where it is working with personnel from the FBI, Microsoft, and Google subsidiary Mandiant.

Reports: China hacked Verizon and AT&T, may have accessed US wiretap systems Read More »

SCOTUS denial ends saga of Shkreli’s infamous 5,000% drug price scheme

daraprim, drug pricing, health, Marin Shkreli, Policy, Science, Shkreli / Kelly Newman / October 7, 2024

The legal saga over Martin Shkreli’s infamous 5,000 percent price hike of a life-saving anti-parasitic drug has ended with a flat denial from the highest court in the land.

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected Shkreli’s petition to appeal an order to return $64.6 million in profits from the pricing scheme of Daraprim, a decades-old drug used to treat toxoplasmosis. The condition is caused by a single-celled parasite that can be deadly for newborns and people with compromised immune systems, such as people who have HIV, cancer, or an organ transplant.

Federal prosecutors successfully argued in courts that Shkreli orchestrated an illegal anticompetitive scheme that allowed him to dramatically raise the price of Daraprim overnight. When Shkreli and his pharmaceutical company, Vyera (formerly Turing), bought the rights to the drug in 2015, the price of a single pill jumped to $750 after being priced between $13.50 and $17.50 earlier that year. And Shkreli quickly came to epitomize callous greed in the pharmaceutical industry.

In a lawsuit filed in 2021, the Federal Trade Commission and seven state attorneys general accused Shkreli of building a “web of anticompetitive restrictions to box out the competition.” In January of 2022, US District Court Judge Denise Cote agreed, finding that Shkreli’s conduct was “egregious, deliberate, repetitive, long-running, and ultimately dangerous.”

SCOTUS denial ends saga of Shkreli’s infamous 5,000% drug price scheme Read More »

FCC lets Starlink provide service to cell phones in areas hit by hurricane

Policy, starlink t-mobile / Kelly Newman / October 7, 2024

The Federal Communications Commission gave Starlink and T-Mobile emergency authority to provide satellite-to-phone coverage in areas hit by Hurricane Helene.

“SpaceX and T-Mobile have been given emergency special temporary authority by the FCC to enable Starlink satellites with direct-to-cell capability to provide coverage for cell phones in the affected areas of Hurricane Helene,” SpaceX said yesterday. “The satellites have already been enabled and started broadcasting emergency alerts to cell phones on all networks in North Carolina. In addition, we may test basic texting (SMS) capabilities for most cell phones on the T-Mobile network in North Carolina.”

SpaceX warned of limits since the service isn’t ready for a commercial rollout. “SpaceX’s direct-to-cell constellation has not been fully deployed, so all services will be delivered on a best-effort basis,” the company said.

Starlink is being used to provide wireless emergency alerts to cell phones from all carriers in North Carolina, according to Ben Longmier, senior director of satellite engineering for SpaceX. “We are also closely monitoring Hurricane Milton and standing by ready to take action in Florida,” he wrote.

Temporary spectrum authority

The FCC said the approval “enabl[es] SpaceX to operate Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) in the 1910–1915 MHz and 1990–1995 MHz frequency bands leased from T-Mobile in areas affected by the Hurricane Helene.” An FCC spokesperson told Ars that the approval is for all areas affected by Hurricane Helene, although it’s only active in North Carolina so far.

The FCC also said that it is granting “special temporary authorities to licensees and issuing rule waivers to help communications providers maintain and restore service, support emergency operations, and assist public safety, including search and rescue efforts.” Separately, the FCC last week waived certain Lifeline program eligibility rules to help people in disaster areas apply for discounted phone and broadband service.

SpaceX began launching satellites with direct-to-cell capabilities in January 2024 and showed a demo of text messages sent between T-Mobile phones via one of Starlink’s low-Earth orbit satellites. T-Mobile has said the Starlink service for phones will help cover gaps in areas where it has no coverage “due to terrain limitations, land-use restrictions,” and other factors.

FCC lets Starlink provide service to cell phones in areas hit by hurricane Read More »

Why trolls, extremists, and others spread conspiracy theories they don’t believe

conspiracy theories, misinformation, Policy, Science, syndication, trolling / Kelly Newman / October 5, 2024

Some just want to promote conflict, cause chaos, or even just get attention.

Picture of a person using an old Mac with a paper bag over his head. The bag has the face of a troll drawn on it.

There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a number of people sharing conspiracies online who don’t believe their own content.

They are opportunists. These people share conspiracy theories to promote conflict, cause chaos, recruit and radicalize potential followers, make money, harass, or even just to get attention.

There are several types of this sort of conspiracy-spreader trying to influence you.

Coaxing conspiracists—the extremists

In our chapter of a new book on extremism and conspiracies, my colleagues and I discuss evidence that certain extremist groups intentionally use conspiracy theories to entice adherents. They are looking for a so-called “gateway conspiracy” that will lure someone into talking to them, and then be vulnerable to radicalization. They try out multiple conspiracies to see what sticks.

Research shows that people with positive feelings for extremist groups are significantly more likely to knowingly share false content online. For instance, the disinformation-monitoring company Blackbird.AI tracked over 119 million COVID-19 conspiracy posts from May 2020, when activists were protesting pandemic restrictions and lockdowns in the United States. Of these, over 32 million tweets were identified as high on their manipulation index. Those posted by various extremist groups were particularly likely to carry markers of insincerity. For instance, one group, the Boogaloo Bois, generated over 610,000 tweets, of which 58 percent were intent on incitement and radicalization.

You can also just take the word of the extremists themselves. When the Boogaloo Bois militia group showed up at the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, for example, members stated they didn’t actually endorse the stolen election conspiracy but were there to “mess with the federal government.” Aron McKillips, a Boogaloo member arrested in 2022 as part of an FBI sting, is another example of an opportunistic conspiracist. In his own words: “I don’t believe in anything. I’m only here for the violence.”

Combative conspiracists—the disinformants

Governments love conspiracy theories. The classic example of this is the 1903 document known as the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” in which Russia constructed an enduring myth about Jewish plans for world domination. More recently, China used artificial intelligence to construct a fake conspiracy theory about the August 2023 Maui wildfire.

Often the behavior of the conspiracists gives them away. Years later, Russia eventually confessed to lying about AIDS in the 1980s. But even before admitting to the campaign, its agents had forged documents to support the conspiracy. Forgeries aren’t created by accident. They knew they were lying.

As for other conspiracies it hawks, Russia is famous for taking both sides in any contentious issue, spreading lies online to foment conflict and polarization. People who actually believe in a conspiracy tend to stick to a side. Meanwhile, Russians knowingly deploy what one analyst has called a “fire hose of falsehoods.”

Likewise, while Chinese officials were spreading conspiracies about American roots of the coronavirus in 2020, China’s National Health Commission was circulating internal reports tracing the source to a pangolin.

Chaos conspiracists—the trolls

In general, research has found that individuals with what scholars call a high “need for chaos” are more likely to indiscriminately share conspiracies, regardless of belief. These are the everyday trolls who share false content for a variety of reasons, none of which are benevolent. Dark personalities and dark motives are prevalent.

For instance, in the wake of the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump, a false accusation arose online about the identity of the shooter and his motivations. The person who first posted this claim knew he was making up a name and stealing a photo. The intent was apparently to harass the Italian sports blogger whose photo was stolen. This fake conspiracy was seen over 300,000 times on the social platform X and picked up by multiple other conspiracists eager to fill the information gap about the assassination attempt.

Commercial conspiracists—the profiteers

Often when I encounter a conspiracy theory I ask: “What does the sharer have to gain? Are they telling me this because they have an evidence-backed concern, or are they trying to sell me something?”

When researchers tracked down the 12 people primarily responsible for the vast majority of anti-vaccine conspiracies online, most of them had a financial investment in perpetuating these misleading narratives.

Some people who fall into this category might truly believe their conspiracy, but their first priority is finding a way to make money from it. For instance, conspiracist Alex Jones bragged that his fans would “buy anything.” Fox News and its on-air personality Tucker Carlson publicized lies about voter fraud in the 2020 election to keep viewers engaged, while behind-the-scenes communications revealed they did not endorse what they espoused.

Profit doesn’t just mean money. People can also profit from spreading conspiracies if it garners them influence or followers, or protects their reputation. Even social media companies are reluctant to combat conspiracies because they know they attract more clicks.

Common conspiracists—the attention-getters

You don’t have to be a profiteer to like some attention. Plenty of regular people share content where they doubt the veracity or know it is false.

These posts are common: Friends, family, and acquaintances share the latest conspiracy theory with “could this be true?” queries or “seems close enough to the truth” taglines. Their accompanying comments show that sharers are, at minimum, unsure about the truthfulness of the content, but they share nonetheless. Many share without even reading past a headline. Still others, approximately 7 percent to 20 percent of social media users, share despite knowing the content is false. Why?

Some claim to be sharing to inform people “just in case” it is true. But this sort of “sound the alarm” reason actually isn’t that common.

Often, folks are just looking for attention or other personal benefit. They don’t want to miss out on a hot-topic conversation. They want the likes and shares. They want to “stir the pot.” Or they just like the message and want to signal to others that they share a common belief system.

For frequent sharers, it just becomes a habit.

The dangers of spreading lies

Over time, the opportunists may end up convincing themselves. After all, they will eventually have to come to terms with why they are engaging in unethical and deceptive, if not destructive, behavior. They may have a rationale for why lying is good. Or they may convince themselves that they aren’t lying by claiming they thought the conspiracy was true all along.

It’s important to be cautious and not believe everything you read. These opportunists don’t even believe everything they write—and share. But they want you to. So be aware that the next time you share an unfounded conspiracy theory, online or offline, you could be helping an opportunist. They don’t buy it, so neither should you. Be aware before you share. Don’t be what these opportunists derogatorily refer to as “a useful idiot.”

H. Colleen Sinclair is Associate Research Professor of Social Psychology at Louisiana State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation is an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community. Our team of editors work with these experts to share their knowledge with the wider public. Our aim is to allow for better understanding of current affairs and complex issues, and hopefully improve the quality of public discourse on them.

Why trolls, extremists, and others spread conspiracy theories they don’t believe Read More »

Halls of Torment is Diablo cranked up to 50,000 kills/hour

gaming / Kelly Newman / October 4, 2024

Your first Halls of Torment run starts with a basic warrior, but new classes quickly unlock, each with their own distinct weapons and gameplay rhythms. My favorite ended up being the exterminator class, which uses a flamethrower to simply turn everything around him into a wall of flame. If that’s not your speed, you can choose from defensive shieldbearers with extremely slow attacks, melee axe-wielders that swing quickly with wild abandon, ranged archers that can deal damage from afar, magic-users that make heavy use of area-of-effect spells, a class with a semi-autonomous dog that goes after nearby enemies, and more.

Diablo, but also not Diablo

Just from glancing at Halls of Torment screenshots, it’s easy to glean the heavy visual influence the game owes to the grainy, isometric sprites of old-school Diablo. That throwback, nostalgic appeal extends to little touches like the menu system and low-fi voiceovers for NPCs as well, which comes across as a deliberate if cheesy design choice.

The game’s old-school sprites also make it easier for your graphics card to handle literally hundreds of moving objects and flashy attack effects on screen at once, too. Despite this, my relatively high-end system started struggling to maintain a consistent frame rate by the end of the more difficult dungeons.

The visual frenzy of all these old-school sprites can get a bit overwhelming, especially when some of your own summon attacks end up difficult to distinguish at a glance from enemy threats. Overall, though, the use of distinct colors makes it easy enough to quickly evaluate a screen full of information and extrapolate what it will look like over the coming seconds. I especially appreciated the big, purple lines and circles that telegraph where projectile attacks are going to appear just moments before they do.

Halls of Torment is Diablo cranked up to 50,000 kills/hour Read More »

ULA’s second Vulcan rocket lost part of its booster and kept going

launch, military space, Science, Space, united launch alliance, vulcan / Kelly Newman / October 4, 2024

The US Space Force says this test flight was critical for certifying Vulcan for military missions.

United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, under contract for dozens of flights for the US military and Amazon’s Kuiper broadband network, lifted off from Florida on its second test flight Friday, suffered an anomaly with one of its strap-on boosters, and still achieved a successful mission, the company said in a statement.

This test flight, known as Cert-2, is the second certification mission for the new Vulcan rocket, a milestone that paves the way for the Space Force to clear ULA’s new rocket to begin launching national security satellites in the coming months.

While ULA said the Vulcan rocket continued to hit its marks during the climb into orbit Friday, engineers are investigating what happened with one of its solid rocket boosters shortly after liftoff.

After a last-minute aborted countdown earlier in the morning, the 202-foot-tall (61.6-meter) Vulcan rocket lit its twin methane-fueled BE-4 engines and two side-mounted solid rocket boosters to climb away from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, at 7: 25 am EDT (11: 25 UTC) Friday.

A little tilt

As the rocket arced east from Cape Canaveral, a shower of sparks suddenly appeared at the base of the Vulcan rocket around 37 seconds into the mission. The exhaust plume from one of the strap-on boosters, made by Northrop Grumman, changed significantly, and the rocket slightly tilted on its axis before the guidance system and main engines made a steering correction.

Videos from the launch show the booster’s nozzle, the bell-shaped exhaust exit cone at the bottom of the booster, fall away from the rocket.

“It looks dramatic, like all things on a rocket,” Bruno wrote on X. “But it’s just the release of the nozzle. No explosions occurred.”

During the ascent of the Vulcan rocket on the #Cert2 mission, there appeared to be an issue with the solid rocket booster on the right side of the vehicle as seen from the KSC Press Site. However, the Centaur was able to reach orbit.https://t.co/3iwWLVWZHp

📹: @ABernNYC pic.twitter.com/5h06ffNMXr

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) October 4, 2024

The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial space launches in the United States, said in a statement that it assessed the booster anomaly and “determined no investigation is warranted at this time.” The FAA is not responsible for regulating launch vehicle anomalies unless they impact public safety.

The Vulcan rocket comes in several configurations, with zero, two, four, or six solid-fueled boosters clustered around the liquid-fueled core stage. ULA can tailor the configuration based on the parameters of each mission, such as payload mass and target orbit.

The boosters, which Northrop Grumman calls graphite epoxy motors, are 63 inches (1.6 meters) in diameter and 72 feet (22 meters) long. Their nozzles are made of a composite heat-resistant carbon-phenolic material.

Bruno added that the rest of the damaged booster’s composite casing held up fine during its roughly 90-second burn, but the anomaly caused “reduced, asymmetric thrust” that the rocket compensated for during the rest of its ascent into space.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates commercial space launches, is not immediately requiring an investigation into the booster anomaly. The FAA said it is “assessing the operation and will issue an updated statement if the agency determines an investigation is warranted.”

Remarkably, the Vulcan rocket soldiered on and jettisoned both strap-on boosters to fall into the Atlantic Ocean. They’re not designed for recovery, so ULA and Northrop Grumman engineers will have to piece together what happened from imagery and performance data beamed down from the rocket in flight.

The BE-4 main engines, supplied by Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin, appeared to work flawlessly for the first five minutes of the flight. The core stage shut down its engines and separated from Vulcan’s Centaur upper stage, which ignited two Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10 engines to propel the rocket into orbit.

The second Vulcan rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, powered by two methane-fueled BE-4 engines and two solid rocket boosters. Credit: United Launch Alliance

Live data displayed on ULA’s webcast of the launch suggested the RL10 engines fired for approximately 20 seconds longer than planned, apparently to compensate for the lower thrust from the damaged booster during the first phase of the flight. The Centaur upper stage completed a second burn about a half-hour into the mission.

The rocket did not carry a real satellite. Earlier this year, ULA decided to launch a dummy payload to simulate the mass of a spacecraft, when it became clear the original payload for Vulcan’s second flight—Sierra Space’s first Dream Chaser spaceplane—would not be ready to fly this fall. ULA says it self-funded most of the cost of the Cert-2 test flight, which Bruno suggested was somewhere below $100 million.

Bullseye insertion

“Orbital insertion was perfect,” Bruno wrote on X.

The Centaur engines were supposed to fire a third time later Friday to send the rocket on a trajectory to escape Earth orbit and head into the Solar System. ULA also planned to perform experiments with the Centaur upper stage to demonstrate technologies and capabilities for longer-duration missions that could eventually last days, weeks, or months. The company did not provide an update on the results of these experiments.

Friday morning’s launch follows the debut test flight of the Vulcan rocket on January 8, which sent a commercial lunar lander from Astrobotic on a trajectory toward the Moon. The launch in January was nearly perfect.

ULA is a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which merged their rocket divisions to form a single company in 2006. SpaceX, with its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, is ULA’s main competitor in the market for launching large US military satellites into orbit.

In 2020, the Pentagon awarded ULA and SpaceX multibillion-dollar “Phase 2” contracts to share responsibilities for launching dozens of national security space missions through 2027. Defense officials selected ULA’s Vulcan rocket to launch 25 national security missions, the majority of the launches up for competition. The rest went to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, which started delivering on its Phase 2 contract in January 2023.

Later this year, the Space Force is expected to select up to three companies—almost certainly ULA, SpaceX, and perhaps Blue Origin with its soon-to-debut New Glenn rocket—in a fresh competition to be eligible for contracts to launch the military’s largest spacecraft through 2029.

The Space Force required ULA to complete two successful Vulcan test flights before clearing the new rocket for launching military satellites. Despite the booster malfunction, ULA officials clearly believe the Vulcan rocket did enough Friday for the Space Force to certify it.

“The success of Vulcan’s second certification flight heralds a new age of forward-looking technology committed to meeting the ever-growing requirements of space launch and supporting our nation’s assured access to space,” Bruno said in a statement. “We had an observation on one of our solid rocket boosters (SRBs) that we are reviewing, but we are overall pleased with the rocket’s performance and had a bullseye insertion.”

A closer view of the Vulcan rocket’s BE-4 main engines and twin solid-fueled boosters. Credit: United Launch Alliance

In a press release after Friday’s launch, the Space Force hailed the test flight as a “certification milestone.”

“This is a significant achievement for both ULA and an important milestone for the nation’s strategic space lift capability,” said Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, Space Systems Command’s program executive officer for assured access to space. “The Space Force’s partnership with launch companies, such as ULA, are absolutely critical in deploying on-orbit capabilities that protect our national interests.

“We are already starting to review the performance data from this launch, and we look forward to Vulcan meeting the certification requirements for a range of national security space missions,” Panzenhagen said in a statement.

The Space Force is eager for Vulcan to become operational. Some of the military’s most critical reconnaissance, communications, and missile warning satellites are slated to fly on Vulcan rockets.

Ramping up

Going into Friday’s test flight, ULA and the Space Force hoped to launch one or two more Vulcan rockets by the end of the year, both with US Space Force payloads. The timing of the next Vulcan launch, assuming the Space Force certifies the new rocket, will likely hinge on the outcome of the investigation into the booster anomaly.

ULA has already transported all major components of the next Vulcan rocket from its factory in Alabama to Cape Canaveral for final launch preparations. The company has a backlog of 69 Vulcan flights, counting missions for the Space Force, the National Reconnaissance Office, Amazon’s Kuiper network, and Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane to resupply the International Space Station.

In a prelaunch briefing with reporters, Bruno said ULA aims to launch up to 20 times next year. Roughly half of that number will be Vulcan flights, and the rest will be Atlas V rockets, which ULA is retiring in favor of Vulcan.

There are 15 Atlas V rockets left to fly, primarily for Amazon and Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule. The nozzle failure Friday may also affect the schedule for Atlas V launches because the soon-to-retire rocket uses a similar booster design from Northrop Grumman.

ULA eventually wants to launch up to 25 Vulcan rockets per year from its launch pads at Cape Canaveral and at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. The launch provider is outfitting a second assembly building in Florida to stack Vulcan rockets, a capability that will shorten the time between liftoffs. ULA is modifying its Atlas V launch pad in California to support Vulcan flights there next year.

ULA announced the Vulcan rocket in 2015 to replace the Atlas V and Delta IV rockets, which had stellar success records but were not cost-competitive with SpaceX’s partially reusable Falcon 9. The Atlas V also uses a Russian main engine, a situation that became politically untenable after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and more so after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The final Russian engines for the Atlas V arrived in the United States in 2021.

The Vulcan rocket is somewhat less expensive than the Atlas V, and significantly cheaper than the Delta IV, but still more costly than SpaceX’s Falcon 9. There is a closer price parity between Vulcan and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket.

Bruno hinted at the cost of developing the rocket in his roundtable discussion with reporters earlier this week.

“Developing a rocket, and then the infrastructure to develop a new space launch vehicle, the rule of thumb is it costs you somewhere between $5 billion and $7 billion,” Bruno said. “Vulcan is not outside the rule of thumb.”

Updated at 5: 15 pm EDT (21: 15 UTC) with new FAA statement.

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

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Author name: Kelly Newman